The Strings that Bind us
by Malsyn
Summary: A tragic event left Naruto with a disability hard overcome, but when he does, He'll become the strongest shinobi the world has seen for years. strong,semi-dark,Puppet-master,smart Naruto. CHP1 has been redone.
1. Prolouge

**I welcome you all a revamped chapter to my first story. I hope you all enjoy reading this, and the rest of my story, Strings that Bind Us. Please, Read and Review.  
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**Disclaimer: I do not, in any way, own Naruto or it's characters and settings**.

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**Uchina compound

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Upon the grounds of the famous Uchina clan's large training filed, a training ground cut off from public use so that the Uchina can practice their clan techniques in secret, the two sons of the clan head stood across from each other, almost ten paces apart. The older of the two, the famous Uchina prodigy Itachi, carefully eyed his young brother, whom stood in the clans martial art stance.

"Do you honestly believe you are capable of undergoing my training, Sasuke-kun." The young teen spoke. He stood in a relaxed stance, but anyone could tell that he was always ready for attack. Sasuke's curled into the famous Uchina scowl, as he gathered up the words in his mouth to finally convince his brother to train him.

"I've been ready, and I can take anything you can though at me, Itachi! Don't tell me your afraid to face your own brother." The young brother's face grew from a scowl to a devilish smile, for he was sure that such a remark would provoke his brother to train him at last. He had been waiting years to get such an opportunity when his brother had not been assigned ANBU duty. With today's Kyubi festive, he finally had one.

Ignoring his brother's taunt, Itachi continued to try and stem his brother from wanting his training. "Are you sure you would not rather go and enjoy the festive, along with the others?" Sasuke's face once again became the Uchina scowl, and it was clear that he was starting to get quite frustrated. In his anger, he declared that the festive was a stupid thing, and showed blatant disrespect for the festivals other purpose, not just to celebrate Konoha's victory over the Kyubi, but to honor the many shinobi that gave their lives in an attempt to slow the beast down long enough for the Hokage to stop it.

Itachi's face morphed from his usual emotionless visage to one of anger, and his voice rose as he yelled back at Sasuke, "Have you no respect for the dead, Sasuke? A great many gave their lives to stop that beast, the least you could do is show your appreciation." Sasuke took that hit hard, and his stance faltered as his face became apologetic. "I... I am sorry, Itachi... I meant no true disrespect. It's just, you never have any time to spend with me, and this is one of the few times when you are off duty, I just wanted us to have some fun, for once." Itachi understood what his brother meant. he had always been off either on a mission, or training alone by himself. The least he could do was allow a simple spar.

"You... think getting you ass kicked is fun, do you?" Sasuke smirked and let out a his own comeback. "Do you?" The two brother's smiled, and they settled into the Uchina's fighting style. Sasuke was the first to charge, yet a sound that was only heard by Itachi, due to his superior ANBU skills, promoted him to simply flip Sasuke's forehead when he had reached him. The unexpected move caused the young boy to fall flat on his arse, and look up with confusion. Itachi was frowning as he said, "I'm sorry, Sasuke, perhaps another time." The Uchina prodigy quickly vanished from Sasuke's sight over the compound's walls, and to the street below. 'What was that all about?' The boy thought. A few seconds later, he swore due to his once again having been put off.

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**A few blocks to the southern wall of the compound.

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As the trained ANBU leapt further towards were the sounds were coming from, he could clearly Identify what they really were, screams. Likely from that of a child. He quickened his pace When he discovered this, in order to stop whatever was happening to this child. They seemed to reach a high point, but for some reason they cut off. 'Oh no...' Itachi though, as he pumped more chakra into his feet, almost breaking the roofs as he leapt onward.

When he had finally reached his destination, he saw something more horrible and grotesque then anything seen in all his years as an ANBU. The body of a small boy, completely bloody with his limbs sprawled about and twisted, one was even missing. Around this boy was a small group of very drunken and bloody villagers, some of whom he recognized as fellow ninja.

The boy twitched, and blood leaked out of his mouth as he struggled for air. With his face bloodied, he could not make out who this child was, but he knew one thing, those people had to pay. Stoning his features, he pulled out a kunai that had been hidden o his person, and he charged the group with silence. They had no chance to react, some didn't even get a chance to register what was happening to the others around them. In seconds, they had all hit the floor, breathless.

Itachi stood some feet away, somehow managing to have gotten very little blood upon his cloths. His mind soon remembered the boy, and he rushed over, discarding the bloodstained weapon to his right as he did so. Now that he was up close, he could recognize the boy as the boy called Naruto, the jailer of the dreaded Kyubi no kitsune, and, his charge. One he was supposed to have been protecting.

He could see that the boy had passed out due to his pain, and quickly scooped him up so that he could rush the boy to the hospital. He cared not for the blood that now stained his cloths that he would've worn to the festive, but for the boy's life.

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**Not long after, in the Hokage's office

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The aged and wise Hokage of Konoha sucked deeply on his pipe, and let out a large plume of smoke away from his horned guests. Two representatives from Sunagakure, the Kazekage himself, and his most trusted adviser, Chiyo, a legend from Suna's puppeteer division. "Surely, you can see the benefits of such a treaty, Kazekage-dono." The aging Sarutobi spoke, trying to edge them into signing the document before them.

The sand shadow of Suna spoke offhandedly to his adviser, asking if she could see anything wrong with the treaty. She carefully read over the document and responded to him. "I see nothing that would truly hinder us, Kazekage-sama. But I suggest we should at least think over it for a few-" Interrupting her, a Chunin of Konoha burst though the chamber doors unannounced.

"What is the meaning of this! I am in an important meeting here!" Sarutobi, who held and angry look from his usual calm and passive visage, yelled at the ninja. The man hastily made several bows and offered his apologizes for having interupeted his Hokage. "I offer my humble apologizes, Hokage-sama, but there is a matter of extreme urgency in the hospital. It's... Naruto, sir. He has been attacked and is in critical condition."

Hiruzen's face froze up upon hearing the man's words. 'Naruto? Attacked?' He hastily stood up from his chair said to the two Suna ninja, "I am sorry about this, I hope this does not affect your decision. We can pick this up tomorrow." The Kazekage slammed his fist onto the desk and demanded to know what was going on. "What is the meaning of this!? What could be so important as to leave such a meeting?"

The Hokage turned to him while he was halfway out the door. "It's... a village matter. Please, do not concern yourselves for this." The Chunin quickly tried to get their attention once more. "Um, Hokage-sama, the head doctor there has also requested that you ask Chiyo to accompany us to the hospital." Sarutobi's mind tried to run though the reasons why she would ever be needed at a hospital.

He knew she was a master of the puppet arts, and had some skill medical techniques but why would she be needed, unless... 'Oh no...' was what popped into his brain. The Kazekage looked annoyed at the intrusion, and figured it best to have someone there to tall him what was truly happening. "Chiyo, go with them. I need to know what this is all about." She nodded her head and carefully stood up, and the trio left, leaving the Kazekage outside the office.

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**Hospital waiting room, days latter.

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When the Hokage, Chiyo, and the Chunin had arrived days earlier, it had been clear why Chiyo was requested to join Sarutobi at the hospital. Naruto had been disabled to an extreme extent by the attack, due to most of his limbs having been severely damaged and had for some reason started healing on their own, which in fact made it worse, due to the fact that they were healing in the wrong way.

They required her skills and expertise in the art of puppetry, so that she could construct a number of prosthetic limbs and graft them into place on his body, in place of the nonfunctional ones. With her knowledge of Sasori's old human puppet technique, she would be able to replicate chakra coils inside of the new limbs so that Naruto could still one day become a ninja.

The surgery had been a successful operation. Chiyo, for some reason though, thought it would've been better for the young blond to have more then just two arms, and to have numerous hidden gadgets that were more likely to kill Naruto then help defend him. His secondary arms had been grated just below his primary, and attached using an experimental technique Chiyo had been looking into.

After the initial operation, the Hokage went back and settled the treaty with the Kazekage, and then the sand shadow left and made his way back to Suna, leaving Chiyo behind to help instruct the boy on using the puppet arts.

Said blond boy was currently sleeping in a hospital bed, with Itachi siting in one of the empty chairs on his left, and Chiyo and the Hokage on his right. The Hokage had been visiting the boy to see how he had been doing since the surgery, and Chiyo had been staying in the room with him waiting for the boy to wake, in order to ease his condition on to him. Itachi, like the Hokage, had been visiting the blond ever since he brought him from the attack.

Soon, the Jinchuriki for the dreaded ninetailed fox demon would awaken, and would soon experience the shock of his life. The rustling of the sheets caught the attention of all that sat in the room, a their eyes all fell on the young boy.

The bright hospital lights began to make themselves known to Naruto, as they stung and burned his eyes as he tried to open them. The pain stopped soon, and he was left feeling as if he was partially numb, for he could only feel his right arm. He could barely make out the shapes in the bed sheet that signified that his legs along with his left arm were still attached. Although, for some reason, there were two ridges that signified him having more then just two arms.

"Naruto?" the Hokage, asked hesitantly, "How do you feel?" The blond found it difficult to sit up, but tried to scoot himself up so his body no longer lay flat. "I feel... numb." He could feel his own hot breath upon his face, and only then noticed the odd mask that had been strapped onto his head. He could also here his voice come out in a sort of mechanical type of tone.

As he slid up, the sheets fell away, and revealed to him what the true damage was. His eyes widened in shock at his own appearance, for he now had four arms, three of which had been made of wood. He suspected the same for his legs as well. "Naruto, Please, do not be alarmed..." The Hokage said, as if he had tried to calm a storm before it had even formed. "What... what happened to me?" He asked, in a meek voice that did not hide his shock. "What do you remember last, Naruto?"

Upon hearing the Hokage's words, images of pain and blood from the night before exploded into his mind, he could remember the looks of glee upon the faces of those who had attacked him, and he could recall the strong scent of his own blood... The Hokage did not need to hear a response from the boy, for the look etched upon the blond's face was evidence enough.

"I see... Naruto, you suffered much damage from those... people." He wanted to say "Monsters" or something similar, but he was trying to not let his emotions get to him, just like any good shinobi would try and do. "So, we brought in Chiyo, a legendary puppeteer from suna, to help you. She was able to construct prosthetic limbs to replace your left arm, and both of your legs. Also, she for some reasoned figured an extra set of arms might come in handy."

The others would have face palmed at his bad pun, if it wasn't for the amount of tension that laced the room. Chiyo, however, apparently found his pun amusing, and bore the slightest hint of a smirk. "And you may have noticed the mask that you have on, it is for the fact that your vocal cords were to far damaged to have been fixed by ordinary means," 'Ordinary,' int the shinobi world, referred to the practice of medical jutsu, instead of the practice of using tools to perform surgery. "so, we had this mask constructed to help you speak."

"But... how do I move?" Naruto asked, as he tried to twitch even one of the wooded digits on his primary left arm. "That's were I come in, Naruto. Tell, me, do you know anything about the basics of chakra?" The blond boy nodded his head, for he had learned it during part of his first year in the academy. "Then, this will only be slightly less difficult. Naruto, in order to move your limbs, you will need to construct chakra strings. In order to create a chakra string, you must first..." And that's how the rest of the day went on.

Naruto learned the very basics of chakra string construction, and was able to gain partial control over his legs. For now, he would be needing to use a crutch to help him along, until he mastered using his new legs. His arms would take at least a few more years to learn how to properly operate, though he proved to be a quick learner and cut that time cleanly in half and then some. Even then, he was not a true master, for it would take many years to be a true puppeteer...

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**End prologue.

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**Thank you, for reading the first part of what will become a long series. Please review and tell me if you have enjoyed it, or even if you had not. I am open to any sugestions you may have, and will change any mistakes spotted by you, my readers.**_~Malsyn_


	2. The Lazy sensei

**Hello again! Welcome to the second chapter of the strings that bind us, I was so happy with the many reveiws I got( about 5 ) and how much they seemed to like it, I decided to make the second right away, It's a bit longer then the first but not not much. I hope to be writing tenthousound worded chapters by the time I'm done with this story. See you all on the flip side!(at the end of the chapter)**

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**Disclaimer: I STILL do not own _any _rights to the anime 'Naruto****'.  
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**The strings that bind us.**

**Chapter 2: The lazy sensei  
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**About 6 years later, ninja academy, Iruka's class.**

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Naruto sat next to his best and only friend, Sasuke. A lot has changed over the years for Naruto. For one, he's gotten bigger and had to replace his limbs several times, and for another would be the kid who sat beside him on his left side so that he could be next to the window, away from those who despise him.

After Itachi had saved him all those years back, they had all become good friends. Itachi had felt bad about the fact he didn't get to Naruto sooner and tried to make up for it by being friends with him. Sasuke was reluctant to befriend Naruto if nothing but the way he had dressed.

He had worn a long black trench coat that had jade coloured oriental vines wrapping around the arms, his pants seemed to be an old grayish pair of jeans, and he wore an odd mask over the lower half of his face. The mask had slits in the center that indicated it to be some sort of voice manipulator. But the thing that had caught his eyes the most were his hands, they both had black cloth finger-less gloves on, but his left hand appeared to be almost wooden.

But he had decided to accept the boy as a friend, for his brother had liked him and that was generally a good sign. But back to the present, Naruto still wore what he did all those years ago, though the mask seemed different, more fitting to his face then the last one.

They had both done well during their academy years. Often times tying for top of the class, But those years were over, today they would become real shinobi. Today they would get their jonin sensei and be off on their first mission. But the thing is though, it seemed to be taking an awful long time.

The last team left a while ago, and theirs still hasn't arrived. They might've been fine with him being a little late, but it was getting to the point were Sasuke constantly checked the clock wondering were the hell he was. Right on cue, Sasuke looked at the clock again. It seemed to be the fifth time. "It's been almost an hour. Were is he?" he asked as he turned to his silent blond friend. "Perhaps he got lost on his road of life." Naruto guessed while looking over at their third teammate.

Nara Shikamaru still hasn't moved. Since yesterday. He just slept in his desk like he always did. Probably the reason why he was on their team. For he was dead last, Sasuke was just barely Rookie of the year, and Naruto had rigged the team assignment to be on Sasuke's team.

The silence continued for about ten more minutes until about when Sasuke started to get board. He poked his friend in the arm and held up an eraser that he had swiped earlier in class. Naruto has realy rubbed off on the Uchina a bit and he couldn't help but smile, even if none could see it."I know what your planing, for I thought about that to." He said in an amused mechanical voice.

"But as you can see, I have have not attempted it. If only for the fact that Kakashi-sensei is a trained jonin. I've even head he was in the ANBU. Do you really believe it would work?" He asked to his friend. Sasuke replied by scowling and getting up from his seat. As he walked over to plant the trap, Naruto chuckled a bit, he did love irritating the Uchina, it always proved to be amusing.

Sasuke quickly set his trap and sprinted back to his seat next to Naruto. It was not even six seconds latter that the door fully opened with a feint *plop*. Kakashi bent down and picked up the eraser, eyed it then looked at the wanna-be Genin in the room. He noticed one sleeping over his desk and two in a corner holding back some laughter.

He then tossed the eraser lazily at the sleeping boy's head and waited a second for his head to pop with a "meh?" After he got his attention he stood and addressed the three in the room before him. "My first impression is... I hate all of you" He let that sink in a little bit and then added, "I'll meet you on the roof in five." After that he turned on his heel and left the room towards the roof. But then he noticed a ladder open in front of the stairs. "Oh deer..." he muttered.

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**Nin-Academy rooftop, twelve minutes latter.**

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Both Sasuke and Naruto were irritated now, and Naruto doesn't anger easily. The Nara on the other hand seemed to be enjoying his free time quite well, by sleeping on ground beside the bench. However his nap was interrupted when they all heard footsteps coming from behind them.

"Your late Kakashi-sensei." Naruto said in a flat voice. "Oh, you see there was this ladder, then there was rather large black cat and..." He stopped when he saw how unamused his new students were. He scratched his head sheepishly, "heh heh... Well. Let's get down to business shall we?

Now, I want you to tell me your names, likes, dislikes, hobbies, and your dreams of the future. Let's start with you pineapple-head." He said pointing to the ounce again sleeping Nara.  
"wha..You say something?" He muttered rubbing sleep from his eyes. Kakashi sighed, 'This will be harder then I thought...' " I want your names. Likes. Dislikes. Hobbies. And your dreams of the future. Your up first." He made sure that each word was clearly heard before he waited for a response.

Shikamaru smirked a bit before starting off " My name is Nara Shikamaru. I like to sleep and play Shogi, and I don't like getting into troublesome situations. My hobbies are sleeping and playing Shogi against formidable opponents, and I hope to one day not have to deal with troublesome things." he finished. Kakashi looked at the boy with disinterest. 'Great, I got a lazy-ass Genin on my team, hope the others are better'

"You, mister creepy. Your up" He said as he pointed to Naruto. There was a slight pause until he finally spoke, "What? You Don't mean me do you? I thought you were talking to Sasuke." At that Sasuke growled slightly. 'Oh no, I have a jokester too...' Kakashi took a deep breath and let it out a bit latter. "Yes you." He Replied making sure the blond knew He was Being talked to. "Oh, Well, my name is Uzumaki Naruto. I like to read and train with my friend Sasuke. I don't like people that insult others," He looked at Kakashi a bit harder, "and I Don't like it when people gloat. My hobbies are practising the art of puppets and training hard to become a good ninja. I also hope to one day be looked up to with respect." Kakashi's loan visible eyebrow raised slightly as Naruto finished his introduction. He was a bit weirded out by his odd dead mechanical voice but he tried to ignore it for now. ' Puppets eh? I didn't know anyone in Konoha knew that art. This might actually be interesting...' He then Looked over to the last boy there, "You next, Sasuke was it?" Sasuke looked back up at the man as he began his introduction.

"Yes, my name is Sasuke Uchina. I like to watch my brother train and learning more about my clans Saringan and playing with my friends. I don't like People who act tough and those that hurt others. My free time is spent training and playing with my friend Naruto. I wish to one day be one of the strongest ninja in the world." He finished, Kakashi began to think over his team for a little bit and draw a conclusion. 'Well let's see, we have a lazy ninja, a creepy ninja, and an odd ninja that appears to be friends with creepy ninja. I can make this work.' "Alright then, I want you all to meet me at training ground seven at five AM sharp. Oh and don't eat anything, you'll puke." With that Kakashi leapt away to continue reading his favourite porn.

The rest of the new team didn't stay there long, Shikamaru left shortly afterword saying something about sleeping in a nice comfortable bead, and Sasuke left to help his family with some work. That left one Uzumaki Naruto. As Naruto walked home from the academy he thought to himself, 'hmm...is there anything I might need to do before tomorrow? Okay I have my joints oiled,' He flexed his arms a bit inside and outside his coat and tested his legs to be sure. ' I finished up that puppet, I should probably seal him up for tomorrow. What else could I posablely need to do?' After a few more minutes of walking he noticed he was near his favourite Raman shack. "Ah yes food!" He exclaimed.

He walked over to one one of the empty stools and noticed, in his opinion, the best Raman chef in Konoha, Ichiraku. "Naruto! It's good to see you again! Can I expect that you'd like the usual?" He asked his favourite patron. "Yes please." He answered in return.

After a few minutes his food was delivered, a rather large bowl of their most expensive Raman. He removed his mask to reveal some of the lesser know features. He ate the slowly and after a several minutes he put down the bowl, put his mask back on so he could speak with Ichiraku, and went to pay him. "No no Naruto, that was my treat. I heard you became a Genin today." He smiled. Naruto responded with an Kakashi-like eye smile in return. "Thank you Ichiraku-san." He bowed slightly to the chef and went on his way home though the market district to pick up some food for his apartment.

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**7:24AM the next day, training ground seven.**

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The next day had the Genin board as hell. They had been told to arrive at five, it was now almost thirty minutes after seven. Shikamaru did what he normally did in these situations, sleep. Naruto and Sasuke passed the time a game of Shogi using a board found in their third teammates pack. They found that Naruto had a talent for this game. "Checkmate." Naruto said for the sixth time in a row. Sasuke responded by muttering under his breath.

Not long after that, a certain white haired ninja appeared before them in a poof of smoke. "Sorry I took so long, you see there was this old lady..." ounce again he was stopped by his new students stares. He scratched his head sheepishly ounce again. "heh heh... Alright Now let's get down to..." He stopped when he noticed the pineapple head still dozing off. He bent over and picked up one of the many Shogi pieces that Naruto took from Sasuke. With that in hand he flicked at his head. A few muttered troublesomes latter and he continued talking.

"Now, as I was saying. Let's get down to business. It's time to begin your real test." He noticed some confusion in Sasuke and Shikamaru's faces. Naruto's looked stoic, but then again, you can hardly see much of his face with that mask on. "What do you mean by test? We already had our Genin exam." Sasuke asked the scarecrow. "Ah, you may have taken their test but you haven't taken MY test." He watched their expressions for a little bit longer before continuing. "Now, what I want you to do is take one of these bells from me by noon. If you don't manage to grab hold of one of them by that time, you fail and go strait back to the academy for another year."

He noticed some confusion in their faces, even Naruto raised his eyebrow a bit, for in his hand were two bells instead of three. "Sensei there are only two bells in your hand." Sasuke stated. Kakashi nodded, "Yes that means that no matter what, one of you will fail." He saw Both Sasuke and Shikamaru hold their faces in surprise. Naruto however seemed to realize something and he could just feel the smirk behind his mask. 'This will indeed prove interesting...' Kakashi thought to himself.

"I'll have a clock here to tell when the test ends. Remember to come at me with the intent to kill. Now, ready....GO!" instantly all the Genin took off. He also noticed it was in the same direction. 'Perhaps they see the true meaning behind this test...' He thought to himself. After a few seconds of nothing happing he pulled out his porn and began giggling instantly.

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**With team 7 minus Kakashi**

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Naruto looked over at his new teammates and then back at the now porn reading jonin. They all sweatdroped when they heard him giggling like a little schoolgirl. "Alright, Shikamaru, you know the Kage mane yes?" Naruto asked his third teammate. "Yes, all Nara's do. Are you planing some sort of distraction so that I could catch him with It?" he replied. "Sort of." He answered back.

After a few minutes of silent planning Naruto announced his plan. "Shikamaru, I want you to trap him in the Kage mane when I give you the signal, after that I want Sasuke to grab the bells as quickly as posable. I'll be restraining him to help enforce the Kage mane. Ounce Sasuke gets the bells you two dash off and I'll hold him off so you can get away." He finished, quite proud for his plan.

"What about you?" Sasuke asked. "Don't worry, I have an idea of the true intentions of this test. Remember that one lesson? Always look underneath the underneath." They just nodded in agreement and waited for him to give the signal. To Shikamaru's surprise Two more wooden arms seemed to appear underneath his first, but he just nodded it off, everyone has secrets, he's sure he'll here about this one latter. "Stay quite." and with that he was off.

Kakashi looked up to see in mild surprise one of Genin running towards him, he shook his head in surprise ' I thought you would know better...what the...?' It was then he noticed the clearly wooden arms under his first. 'Well that's new...' He instantly remembered when Naruto said he used puppets. 'Ah that must be one of them. Looks real, he dose some nice wor-' his train of thought was interrupted when he dodged under a rather sharp dagger. 'What the hell?!'

He glanced behind and saw it's source. It appeared to be an oddly shaped puppet. The puppet was hunched over and wore a poncho over it's body, he had four arms, but no legs. Were legs would be normally placed, there were two arms, sort of like a monkey. A hole was in the center of his abdomen. He had his head was cocked to the side, it was completely wrapped in bandaged except for an eye on his left side. He appeared to have been floating in mid-air.

He glanced back to his front just in time to doge what looked like a spinning saw blade on his lower left arm. 'How can he use more then one of those things!?...wait...' He noticed how his lower right seemed to be pulling some strings. 'Does that mean... no no no...it can't be...cant it? dose he really have four arms?' he shook it off as some weird puppetearing trick. 'I need to concen-' Ounce again he dodged a strike from the one behind only to come strait into Naruto's Upper left fist.

He quickly realized this would be a bit harder then he thought. He used a Kawarimi to avoid getting stabbed in the chest by the hunched puppet, only to fall into Narutos trap. Both of thing that had been attacking Kakashi disappeared in a puff a smoke. 'Kage bunshin!' He didn't have time to wonder were he learned that technique due to him falling right into the hunched puppet's arms.

"Nara! Now!" Naruto screamed out and not ten seconds later Kakashi had been trapped. Naruto leapt onto him to make sure that he couldn't move. He struggled, but to no anvil. If perhaps the blond would get off him he would be able to escape. A little bit latter and Sasuke made a grab for the bells and ran of Towards Shikamaru.

After a second or two latter he was released and tried to get out of Naruto's grip. After he pushed both the blond and the puppet back he saw that the bells were gone. Naruto got up along with the puppet to prevent him from going after Sasuke and the Nara. He couldn't help but smile. "Naruto. You've passed. Same with you two." He said to the ones hiding a bit further back. After a little hesitation, the others appeared from their hiding places. "What do you by we all passed? Only me and Shikamaru got the bells." He asked his sensei in confusion.

"It's because you saw the true meaning of this test, teamwork. You've all worked together to achieve those bells. Also, Naruto knew something important about being a shinobi. There may be times when you need to save your comrads by staying behind. In other words He sacrificed himself so that you could finish the mission. However, know this. Those that break the rules are trash, but those that leave their comrads behind are worse then trash." Sasuke and Shikamaru looked a bit ashamed that they didn't do much to try and save Naruto, but they were happy that they had passed. "Now, let's meet back here again before we go on our first mission. Let's say...oh about six?" It was then he heard the stomachs of three hungry Genin "Oh! how could I forget!" He then pulled out some lunches from a pack he had near a rock. The three ate happily knowing that their first mission as Ninja begins tomorrow. Boy will they be upset when they find out what it is.

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**END Chapter 2**

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**There we have it folks, my second chapter of my first story. Hope you all enjoy it, I've decided to try and add some funny to this story. If you think that Naruto doesn't seem that dark at the moment, just know something. He won't be completely dark, maybe a bit cold-hearted at times, but not completely ruthless kill-all-that-oppose-him dark. If your really worried about him being to light-hearted wait for my latter chapters. Oh, and just to know, turkey break ended yesterday so updates will be a bit slower at least until Christmas break. I'll probably be updating on Wednesdays and on weekends, hope to see you soon! **_~Malsyn_


	3. The Drunken Bridge master

**Hello all! It's me again with another installment of The strings that bind us. Today team seven starts their first mission and will set out to the wonderful land of waves. Now, here's some news. A mister deltabeta26 pointed out to me that Naruto's puppet had a confusing description, so I fixed it to make it a bit more clear. Please read and review. Now, on with the show..err...chapter.**

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**Disclaimer: Guess what? I still don't own 'Naruto'.  
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**The strings that bind us.  
Chapter 3: The drunken bridge master.**

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**Konoha forest outskirts **

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In the forest a white haired Jonin was using a collar-radio to contact his team."Sasuke, Position." "I'm about two yards behind the target." Was the first static filled reply. "Good, Nara, Position" "I'm three yards on his left" Was the second. "Excellent, Naruto, position?" "Me and my puppet Enjin(ape man) our flanking it on it's right." came the last Genin.

"Perfect, when i give the single we follow though with our plan. Ready...GO!!" Instantly Naruto used his puppet to come in on the targets front while he charged his right and Sasuke came up from behind, forcing the target to Shikamaru. When the target got in range he activated his jutsu.

"Success" was all he muttered. Then the rest of the team came into view to inspect their target. "Remind me why we were chasing after this pathetic cat." came from a rather annoyed masked Genin. "This mission is stupidly easy."

"Naruto, your fresh out of the academy, they're supposed to be easy. Do you all really think you could take out an entire croup of bandits your first day as a ninja?" Kakashi asked his students. Sasuke was the one answered. "Yes, of course we could." came his answer. Kakashi sighed deeply, "No Sasuke, you couldn't." Naruto looked as if he was about to protest but Kakashi interrupted him.

"Even though you may have been trained by your brother for years, you still lack the most important asset of being a shinobi, experience. That's what these missions are for. They may seem stupid, but they are to help you learn how to use the skills that have been taught to you."  
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"But sensei, Itachi never went on these missions." Kakashi looked up from their target before turning back and picking it up, making Shikamaru break his justsu. "Itachi is...different. His Saringan activated at a very young age, and besides that, he had always been a very smart boy."  
he finished while trying to calm the now very mad cat.

Sasuke decided to ask his brother about that later as they proceeded back to the Hokage tower, likely to receive more stupid but apparently necessary missions.

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**Months later, Hokage's office.**

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Over the past months, team seven continued to go on a series of D-rank missions, sometimes even taking on multiple missions a day. But by this point, they were getting bored. Bored enough to make a fit at the mission registration desk, right after the Hokage was about to assign them to fetch Tora the cat, for the sixth time that month.

"What! were not doing that mission again, I won't something harder, something more exiting, don't you have anything more exiting?!" Sasuke demanded to the now amused Hokage. "I am inclined to agree." muttered an almost always silent blond, "I am also getting tiered of these...missions." Shikamaru muttered something along the lines of 'troublesome' before he spoke up as well, "Same here, don't you have anything else better then these Hokage-sama?" he asked.

Kakashi looked began to apologize for the his Genin's rudeness, but he was stopped midway though the phase 'I'm sorry'. "Kakashi," began an amused Hokage, "perhaps these genin have a point. They have been getting nothing but these 'boring' missions." he smirked when he remembered Kakashi waling into his office with a cat attached to his face.

"So I might be so inclined as to give you an 'exiting' mission." he used air quotes for a comedic effect. "And it just so happens we have one that might be at your level. Tazuna, could you step in now?" he called, "You'll be escorting and guarding Tazuna the bridge master while he completes it. Can you handle that?" he asked.

just then the bride master spoke up, "What's this? a couple of kids? I thought I was hiring ninja, not brats. Who's that short one?" he asked-more demanded-while pointing towards Sasuke. "Hey! who you calling short!" He yelled attempting to lunge at him but was helped back by his two friends.

Kakashi decided to take control of the situation by conking Sasuke on the back of the head with his book. "Yes, I think we can handle it, thank you Hokage-sama" at that he bowed along with his students after Sasuke regained consciousness, 'that was embarrassing...' Sasuke thought to himself.

Before they left, Kakashi said that when they got up to meet him at the front Konoha gate at seven AM. 'damn brats' was all Tazuna thought as he took another long drink of his sake only to find it empty. 'I'll be sure to get some more of this stuff before I go, this shit is awesome...'

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**Konoha front gate 7:12AM **

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The team prepared to set off on their journey while Kakashi signed out at the guard post. "Good luck on your mission!" came the bored Chunin. After that the gate opened ant they were off, at a rather slow civilian pace, 'This is going to take forever. Troublesome' Shikamaru thought to himself, except the last word which was heard and ignored by the group.

After several Hours of walking Kakashi noticed a puddle but had decided not to attack the obvious ninja. Naruto on the other hand... "Show yourselves!" he yelled as he dived at the puddle, taking the ninja by surprise as they quickly jump out.

As soon as they did they immediately tried to regain control of the situation by attempting, and succeeding, to rip Kakashi to shreds. "One down!" They yelled in unison as they turned to their true target, Tanzuna. "Four to go!" After that they rushed at Tanzuna only to be stopped by a kunai pinning them to a tree, after which Naruto and his puppet-which seemed to appear in a puff of smoke-restrained them, followed by Shikamaru trapping them with his Kage mane.

Soon afterwords to their surprise and anger Kakashi began clapping. "Well done, that was some nice teamwork there." Three pairs of angry eyes met his gaze. "Where the hell were you!?" Sasuke demanded, clearly getting annoyed by their sensei. "Now now, no need to get rash, I was just trying to see who these two were after." he finished, stunning his students.

"What do you mean Kakashi-sensei?" Asked a rather talkative Naruto. "I mean exactly what i said, who these two were after. If you really don't know then I mean I was watching if they would go after us, simple ninja against enemy ninja combat, or against something else..." his eye drifted towards a rather drunk but freak-ed out bridge master.

Kakashi instructed his Genin to tie up the two who had attacked them, while they were doing that he turned towards the bridge master. "I think you need to explain yourself." Kakashi demanded.

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**Hours later, near a dock **

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After Tanzuna delivered his story as to why he was being chased ninja, Kakashi had decided that they would continue on anyways, likely just so his team could get their need for battle out of their heads. Shikamaru of course said his trademark 'troublesome' at the end of his story and again after his sensei decided to continue.

Now they were loading onto a small motorboat to get across the water to get to waves. T Throughout the trip the lake had been covered in fog, only parting ounce to reveal an magnificent bridge. along the entire trip the motor remained off, the boats owner said it was so they wouldn't draw any attention to themselves.

Ounce they got out from under a bridge, they were greeted with a magnificent sight. The beauty of the town around them had hid a dark secret, one that they had already known form Tanzou. That the town's poverty had been covered by it's beauty.

After they got onto dry-land the motorboat sped off, no longer needing secrecy. They began to make a long trek though a forest to get to Tanzou's home and after several long hours, and after entering yet another mist, they only heard a feint whistling sound before Kakashi yelled, "Get down!!"

As soon as he said that a large blade flew into the air were their heads were moments before and wedged itself into a tree."Well well well, what do we have here? A couple of kids and...oh? Is that the legendary copy-cat ninja Kakashi Hatake? It is you isn't it? What a pleasure meeting Konoha's strongest jonin out here. This is going to be fun." The man who had said this had his face wrapped in bandages, much like Naruto's puppet, with a slashed Kiri headband on his forehead.

Kakashi's eye widened in surprise at the man's billowing black cloak with red cloud designs stitched across it. "Zabuzu, the demon of the mist, working for the Akatsuki?" He asked in surprise and fear for what techniques this man could posses. "What can I say? They pay very well. Now were is Kisame..." he muttered to himself while letting his eyes wander off to the right looking for said partner. Kakashi took that chance and rammed into him, making him let go of his sword still attached to the tree, and pushing him towards the water.

"Your not wining that easily! Funkei(deacitation) return!" he yelled, his giant sword glowed blue for a moment before shooting strait towards his hand. This caught Kakashi off guard and was rewarded with a quick kick to the stomach. Followed by a powerful chop in an attempt to cleave off his head, to which Kakashi dodged and attempted to get some distance.

'Where the hell did he learn that!? That wasn't in the bingo book!' Kakashi thought rapidly to himself. "Oye! get back here! **Seidai kiru no jutsu!**(grand slice technique)" As soon as he uttered the words, he swung his blade and dark blue light streamed forward almost slicing Kakashi in half. 'Shit shit shit! I need to get them out of here!' Kakashi thought worriedly to himself.

He then noticed as the mist parted a bit, his team huddled around each other in an attempt to hatch a plan. "Get out of here! This guys way too strong for you! Run!" he screamed, before they were covered in mist ounce again. "Those brats ain't getting out of here either Kakashi." He then made a one handed hand-seel for a water clone technique. "In fact, they'll die long before you do." He then let out an insane laugh as he swung his blade madly towards Kakashi. 'this is not looking good'

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**Back with team seven minus Kakashi **

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The team stood in formation around their charge as they searched for the source of the blue light they had seen moments earlier. 'Were the hell is he?!' Naruto thought to himself as he scanned the mist around him, as if attempting to peel the fog away with his eyes. Just then movement caught his eye.

"He's on my left!" He yelled while maneuvering his puppet to be behind what he suspected to be his enemy, only for the chakra strings to go limp. "huh?" was all that escaped his mouth. His teammates gathered up their weapons in an attempt to fulfill their plan when they heard laughter. "What's this? A puppet? Even at being a sixth of my masters chakra I can still cut these strings!" He laughed while he threw the limp puppet towards the Genin's feet.

"Well that's not gonna work." Sasuke muttered. "Troublesome..." Shikamaru grumbled. The clone parted the mist a small bit so that they could see his face for a moment, "I guess you'll have to do better then that you brats." as he said that Shikamaru though a handful of shurikon at him, but his face had already disappeared.

"Now now, do you really think you can defeat an an Akatsuki in battle Genin?" his voice along with his maniacal laughter surrounded them. "Try harder, it's never fun when my victims are so weak." the voice came from right next to Sasuke, he turned in time to knock Tanzou to the ground, saving him from losing his head.

This proved as enough of a distraction for the Nara on their team to ensnare him in a Kage mane. It wouldn't last long on a strong opponent such as this clone but it did give Naruto enough time to complete an attempt at stabbing the clone in the head. "Well that's not fun..." the clone grumbled as a blade attached to Naruto's left wrist came rushing towards him, slicing the top portion clean off before it dissolved back into water.

"I hope Kakashi-sensei is doing alright, if that was just a water clone, this guy must be strong as hell." Sasuke said as got off the ground to check on their worn out Nara. Naruto glanced over and saw that their charge had passed out. "I know he's doing well, he is our sensei after all." Naruto stated as looked over to were sounds of metal clashing on metal came from. 'I hope'

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**End chapter 3 **

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**Yes! The first of many cliff hangers!And it looks like Itachi's replacement has just made an appearance, did you see that move? I don't remember him doing that in the anime. Also, I've found an online translator for the jutsu's and stuff, so you get to enjoy some new original jutsus free of charge! Hope you enjoyed it, please review, it's just like other authors say, reviews are crack for writers. Be back soon with the follow-up.**_~Malsyn_


	4. The Greedy man

**Wow, only six reviews and more then five hundred hits? How am I supposed to know if I'm writing to your satisfaction if you don't tell me? No matter, I bring you the forth chapter of The strings that bind us. Please, read and review.

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**Disclaimer: As much as it pains me to say, I sill don't own 'Naruto'.  
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**The strings that bind us.  
Chapter 4: The Greedy man **

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**A random cave, about two months earlier.**

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Inside of a dark cave there were ten small pedestals made of surrounded by a dark cave wall. Suddenly, one by one the top of the pedestals glowed a feint greenish blue. A few seconds later, atop each of the pedestals except for one had a shadowy holographic figure standing on them. Nothing could be clearly made out about them except for their eyes.

The figures began to speak, their voices sounding mechanical. The one who's eyes that seemed to contain a ripple in them spoke first, "It has been a long time since we have all gathered like this, hasn't it?" "It has, almost three months." Spoke a man who seemed to be hunched over. "I won't keep this long, we are almost ready to begin the second phase of our plans." spoke the ripple eyed man.

"And what would that be?" came a man who seemed to be losing his temper. "Hidan. Silence." Spoke a man who's eyes seemed to be green. "Kakuzu, he is right, you do need to know what the plan is, but I'm afraid I can't tell you at the moment, you must wait until later. For now we continue our first phase. You all shall continue your respected missions. You may leave now. Kisame, Zabuza, you stay here, I have a special mission for you two."

After he had finished speaking and some muttering from the one known as 'Hidan', the rest of the group left, leaving the ripple eyed man and the ones known as 'Kisame' and 'Zabuza'. "What is this special mission of yours master?" spoke the one who had fish-like eyes.

"I have recently been contacted by a very powerful businessman, he has requested some help for his plan on an island called waves in exchange for a large some of money. Since you two are the closest, I have decided to send you to fulfill this mission." He finished.

"Will there be fighting?" asked the only one left who had normal eyes, Zabuza. "It is not likely. This is simply a mission were you two shall be his temporary henchman. You will be required to do what he needs to complete his goal in waves so that we can be paid. That money could jump-start our plans into action. Your mission has been given." Before the other two could protest, his image vanished.

"Damn it all, another boring mission. Let's go Zabuza." With that said, their images faded as well.

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**Present time, Forest of waves.**

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Zabuza could feel some of his strength return, which made him frown. "Hmm, it seems that your students aren't as week as I thought they were. Let's see how they do against four!" He smiled on that one and was about to make another handseel for the water bunshin technique but was stopped with a lunge from his opponent. "No!" Kakashi cried as he lunged at him with a kunai in hand.

This brought Zabuza's strength to be revealed ounce again as he blocked with his sword, making him lose concentration on his technique. Using his opponent's loss of concentration Kakashi used this time to tear off his headband, revealing his Sharingan. This brought an insane smile back to Zabuza's face.

"Heh, I was wondering when that eye would show, It's been so long since I've killed a Sharingan user!" When he had finished talking, he begun to swing his sword at Kakashi in fast and seemingly wild movements. "I will make you see why I have been called the demon of the mist, Funkei, **Flurry of swords technique!**(1)" As soon as he uttered those words, the sword began to glow blue ounce more.

Not much long after that, the light suddenly started shooting out at Kakashi, making deep trenches in the ground as it did so. Kakashi had no choice other then to leap away and dodge for as long as possible. 'I can barely register those movements even with my Sharingan! What the hell is that technique!?' He screamed inside his head.

Not long after the technique began it died down to an abrupt start. 'hmm, that jutsu lasted fifteen seconds exactly. That must be how long he can hold it up' after that thought came to him, ha began to form a plan. Unfortunately, the plan was stopped by a Genin attack.

To Zabuza, it all came to quick, one moment he's about to use one of his higher level sword techniques and the next he's impaled though the chest by four small wrist daggers, he immediately felt that they were poisoned. 'Damn it all! they got the drop on me! I got to get out of here!'

His plan was stopped when he found he couldn't move. 'No!!' He screamed in his mind. He saw another Genin coming strait for him, yet all he could think about was how his original opponent was still alive, so he did the only thing he could do. A last ditch effort technique that consumed a massive amount of chakra. "Funkei!" He shouted, "**Sagasu ken utsu no jutsu!**"(2)

He could instantly feel the exhaustion overload him, he tried to keep awake by concentrating on Kakashi so his technique could fully work, before it did however, he fell a few pricks on his neck and he screamed a minute before falling over, making Shikamaru's technique fail. his sword, which had been fly toward Kakashi in a blue light, suddenly released a massive amount of dark blue chakra only ten feet away from it's target.

The force of the blast alone pushed Kakashi back into a tree, a few large snaps were heard as he hit a tree, he used as much chakra as possible to make himself stand up and walk over to were Zabuza was. He was surprised to see a tall man donning an whit ANBU mask with the mist symbol on it's forehead. He wore a white hooded cloak which covered his entire body leaving only his mask visible.

"I am sorry to interrupt you but I need to take Zabuzu-san's corpse so that I may dispose of it." The ANBU spoke, It seemed that Kakashi had missed part of the conversation between his team and the cloaked ANBU. Before Kakashi could say anything the man bent down and picked up the body, leaving his team bewildered.

"Who was that man Kakashi-sensei?" Came the Uchina boy. "That man was an ANBU, a Kiri ANBU by that symbol on his mask." He took a breath, starting to feel a bit exhausted and his legs and arm start to hurt, "He Probably came to take him out on his village's orders. He's disposing of the body so that there's nothing an enemy could learn from it, jutsus, bloodlines...exetera." At that point, he cloud no longer keep standing, his chest along with his legs and arms burned in pain. He suddenly feinted.

"Kakashi-sensei!" came from both Shikamaru and Sasuke as they ran to his side. 'Chakra exhaustion.' Naruto thought. He then spoke to Tazuna, "Tazuna, is your home much further?" "Err, no just about thirteen minutes." He spoke quickly, obviously surprised to the fact that one of his guards, presumably the strongest, was out cold.

"Then will get there in five. Shikamaru, grab Tazuna. Me and Sasuke will get Kakashi. Which direction is your home Tazuna?" he asked as he moved to help pick Kakashi up. Tazuna hesitantly climbed onto Shikamaru's back, ignoring him muter 'troublesome' and 'heavy'. "It's north east." he said, and in seconds they were practically flying as the ninja ran through the trees.

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**About five minutes later, at Tazuna's house **

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When Tazuna stumbled off Shikamaru's back, he almost threw up. He quickly tried to recover from likely the most traumatizing event in his life and ran up to the house to open the door for the ninja carrying their sensei. He knocked on the door so his daughter wouldn't attack when he went in unexpected.

After a few minutes, a beautiful young woman opened the door. "Dad your home! Are these the people you brought to help?" her voice started to get a bit more panicky at the sight of the unconscious ninja. "What happened?! Is he all right?!" she asked in full blown panic mode.

Naruto attempted to calm her down, "He should be fine, he likely has a few broken bones but he majorly just needs rest at the moment. Do you have any spare rooms?" He asked in a calm, collective and slightly creepy voice. The woman nodded her head slowly, surprised by his mechanical voice.

"May name is Tsunami by the way." She said as she led the group upstairs. when the they came to an empty room with a bed, Naruto and Sasuke layed Kakashi down. " My name is Uzamaki Naruto. This is our sensei, Kakashi. These are Uchina Sasuke and Nara Shikamaru." He said pointing to his two teammates

"I will be making diner soon, would any of you like any?" she asked, trying to be kind to the ninja who likely shaved her father's life. "Yes that would be lovely. Please don't make much for me though." Naruto said as he sat down next to his sensei. The others did so as well.

"I'll bring up your food when it is done alright?" she asked, to confirm what they wanted. "Yes that will be fine." Naruto said while he begun to check for any broken bones. Tsunami left the room quickly as to not be embarrassed by the soon to be half-naked man. When she left the room Naruto begun to remove his shirt to check for broken ribs.

He used chakra to help his search. "One...two...three...four. He has four broken ribs. But do no worry, they haven't punctured anything. With some light med-jutsu healing they should heal fine." Shikamaru took this time to contribute his help. "My father taught me some low level techniques, do you think they'll work.

Naruto remembered he heard that the Nara tended to be strong med-jutsu users as well as strategists. "Yes that might work, but wait for me to finish please." He said as he moved on to his arms.

"His left radius and humerus seem to be cracked. Some light med-jutsu will fix that. He moved onto his legs and found that his right leg dad a hairline fracture in it and noted out loud. he checked for anything else but only found minor scratches.

"Nara, try your med-jutsu." He said as he stepped back. Shikamaru concentrated on attempting to fix his bones, he was able to fix his arms and his leg, but he wasn't fully able to re-attach the ribs. "I was able to fix his arm and his legs, they might need a splint for a few days though. But I must apologize, I wasn't able to completely fix his ribs, so he'll need to stay bed-ridden for a few days."

He seemed ashamed that he wasn't able to completely heal Kakashi but Naruto gave him a reassuring rainbow-shaped eye-smile. "Shikamaru, I'm impressed. Not many Genin our age can perform med-jutsus." The Nara smiled a little bit and turned to his sensei. He then let out sigh while muttering 'troublesome'. He then turned back to Naruto. "Hey, want to play some Shogi while we wait?" Naruto smiled from beneath his mask, happy to see that he has made his friend happy.

Sasuke leaned back against the wall and began to think back to their first day as Genin, how happy he was when he got home. He smiled as he remembered his family's reaction.

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_**Flashback, back to the day of the bell test.  
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_Sasuke smiled as he ran home, using as much chakra as possible to get home as fast as he could to tell them of his success in the bell test. When he neared the compound he began to slow down, ready to announce how He had become a Genin._

_He walked into the compound with complete confidence in himself. He saw his aunt in front of her shop sweeping the ground out in front, she instantly smiled when she saw his face. "What are you so happy about Sasuke?" she asked as she continued sweeping. "Oba-san, I just became a Genin today!" He yelled as began to run home to tell is family._

_"I'm very happy for you Sasuke." as she said that, her smile grew wider, same as Sasuke's. He ran home faster then before running into a few others before he made it to his home. He decided to try and calm himself before he went inside, yet it was still clear that he was beaming with delight._

_As he walled up to the door he could he Itachi's friend Shisui laughing. 'More people to know my greatness!' Sasuke thought. He then tried to calmly open the door and walked in taking off his shoes. Itachi noticed how happy his little brother was and smiled himself as he asked, "Sasuke-kun, why are you so happy today?"_

_If it was at all possible, Sasuke's smile got wider. "Onii-san, me and Naruto just passed our senei's test today! Me and Naruto our officially ninja now!" Shisui smiled as well, "Good job Sauske-san, now me and Itachi can actually train you instead of just tricking you." Sauske's smile disappeared,"Dose that mean that ninja can't really walk on walls?!" Both his brother and Shisui began laughing, that being one of the only real things they taught him._

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**_Flashback finished,_ Tazuna's house, 8:13AM, Two days after the attack**

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Kakashi struggled to stand up properly, his legs still hurt and he needed a crutch to help him stand, his left arm was also still in a splint. Besides all that, he could feel his chest stinging a bit, signaling that his ribs weren't fully healed. "Be careful Kakashi-sensei!" Sasuke yelled, running over to help him stand.

"I'm fine, don't worry." he lied, his body hurt like hell but that wouldn't stop him from training his team, after what he realized. After he hit that tree he felt a bit woozy, if he hadn't been so out of it he would have remembered that ANBU destroyed their targets on the spot. 'That ANBU must have been that 'Kisame' that he had mentioned.' he had thought to himself.

Upon realizing this he had told his team that they might be having a fight ahead of themselves and that they'd need to prepare. They had to stop him from getting up that day and told him that he needed rest and his bones weren't completely healed. When he asked how bad it was, it had shocked him, he should be in a LOT more pain then he was at the time. But the next thing surprised him more.

Apparently one of his Genin was an aspiring med-ninja and had healed most of the damage. He saw then that maybe his students were well trained enough to take on that ninja, but then he remembered that other ninja. Akatsuki travel in pairs.

So now he would need to train them to take on two Akatsuki. He would of punched himself for not leaving but they didn't really have much choice. And from what Naruto said about the poison he used, he should be out of commission for more then a week, but being Akatsuki, they'll probably be back sooner.

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**Gato's headquarters **

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Kisame sat beside his long time friend arguing with himself weather or not they should just abort their mission, but he knew that their leader would be very...upset...if they didn't finish their mission. He looked back to the unconscious ninja and remembered what he had to do to keep him alive.

Apparently, one of the Genin had been a puppet master, and everyone knows how much they love their poisons. When he examined the wounds he could see the skin around them turning purple, signaling that it was starting to decompose. He had to work hard to drain out as much poison as possible and work on finding a cure for it.

He was relieved that the plants in waves proved to be naturally effective against it. After he had gotten rid of the poison he saw from a few cracks on Funkei that he had used his last ditch effort technique. He must have been restrained and pretty pissed to have had to use that technique. He had suffered a massive amount of chakra exhaustion.

Right now, Kisame was working on fix his partners sword. After Zabuza discovered how fully awaken his sword, much like Kisame did his, cracks like this were much easier to fix due to the sword attempting to heal itself. The only thing is, Funkei needed Zabuza's chakra to perform techniques and remain sentient. Which of course made the situation worse.

Just as he was almost finished fixing the sword, The fat man barged into the room. Gato. He must have just gotten back from the mainland."What's this I hear about you two failing to kill Tanzou!? What do I pay you for eh?!" Gato let his eyes drift towards the sleeping ninja. "why the hell do I waist my money if you ninja are so weak!" he yelled. Kisame snapped a little bit and in a second, he was right next to Gato.

"What's this I hear about us being weak?" he asked in a calm and steady voice. In his hand he held his sword right up against Gato's neck, scraping it just the tiniest bit with his sword. Gato could form words correctly. "Umm, well..you see...uh..." Just then, kisame moved his hand onto Gato's arm, after a moment of held breaths later, there was a loud and sickening ***SNAP***, and a rather loud scream.

"We are not weak. We are ninja. And what are you Gato-san? Can you wield a sword such as this? Can you control a water shark with only a few simple hand movements? No. You can't. I want half of our payment right now Gato-san, or else there might be one less dictator in waves." With that he went back to his seat to finish his work.

After he recovered from his scream he began to rub his arm, trying to sooth the pain."Crazy freaky fish man..." he muttered, Kisame ignored this. "Fine. I'll get your stupid money." He said as he walked out the door, his two samurai guards glad to leave the room and get away from the crazy ninja.

Kisame smiled. He already knew what his plan to defeat the ninja guarding the bridge-master was and he was going to be, and he couldn't wait for it to play it any case, if things get to bad, he'll just kill gato take all his money and leave. In fact, if he dose finish the mission and get the rest of their cash he'll kill him anyway. He really hated that man.

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**Chapter end **

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(1) I couldn't find a good Japanese translation of this technique, if anyone knows a good translator please tell me.

(2) Seek and destroy technique.

**Well there you go, the conclusion to Zabuza's fight with Kakashi and begging of their training to try and take out two Akatsuki members. Won't that be fun eh? In any case, next chap will be the waves ark's conclusion. I can't wait to get started on the Chunin ark. There's gonna be a neat plot twist that'll have you guessing what I could posablely do next. until then, enjoy my story**._~Malsyn_


	5. The Angered blond

**I'm sorry for the chapter delay, I hope this will make up for it. Something a bit unfortunate had happened in our family and I needed to take a short break. Here is the fifth chapter. Enjoy while reading and please review.

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**Disclaimer: Hey I think I- Nope, never mind. I still don't own 'Naruto'.  
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**The Strings that bind us**

** Chapter 5: The Angered blond  
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**A stream near Tazuna's house, around nine AM, two days after the attack.**

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Team seven had just reached the point were they could hear running water when Shikamaru finally decided to bring something up, "Kakashi-sensei, why are we out here in the forest? I thought you were going to train us?" Kakashi looked over at his student while he tried to walk with his crutch.

"We are training, just probably not what you expected." he turned back to his walking in time for him to step around a rock. "Troublesome..." was Shikamaru's response. Kakashi did his famous eye smile at that. "If you really want to know, don't worry. I'll tell you all what this training is in a sec'. We're almost there." As he said that, they stepped out of the foliage to see a beautiful stream.

"Tell me, you all know how to walk upon trees yes?" He asked as he leaned over on his crutch to see fish swimming in the stream. Naruto responded first. "Of course, Do you know how much control it takes just to use chakra strings?" He asked a question that he knew wouldn't be answered.

Then it was Shikamaru. "All us Naras learn that technique so that we can preform our clan's justsu." Lastly it was Sasuke, "My brother taught me that technique when I was little." Though he didn't show it, he was relieved to know that ninja could indeed walk upon walls. "Good, that will make this training easier for me since you have already completed the first part."

All of his team looked dumbfounded by this. What did he mean by 'first step'? Kakashi saw the confusion in their faces and begun to form his thoughts into words. "The tree walking is the first part of a two part exercise. The second part is water walking." Sasuke asked something to ease his confusion, "What do you mean by 'water walking'? How is that an exercise?"

Kakashi responded this immediately. He answered the second question first. "These are exercises to help train your control over chakra. And about your first question..." He formed a hand-seal for a brief moment and then placed his good foot upon the water. A few of his students snickered thinking threat their sensei was just about to get wet. The third more silent blond teammate just watched.

After he had his first foot on the water he placed his other onto the stream as well and turned to his dumbfounded students. "This, is what I mean by water walking." He said as he finished a sentence he had started earlier. "How did you do that?" Asked the ever curious Sasuke. Naruto cocked his head slightly to the left in wonder at this likely useful technique.

"You saw that seal I made beforehand yes?" They all nodded their heads in conformation. "That seal is commonly used by people to help concentrate chakra. I'm sure that many people would recognize that seal." Naruto stated plainly. Kakashi eye smiled at the boy, "Yes that is correct Naruto. I made that seal so that I could concentrate my chakra to spread out evenly on the bottom of my feet. Do you know why?" There was no response.

"You know how the tree walking exercise works yes?" they nodded, this time not using large explanations. "It works because your trying to produce enough chakra to stick to the tree, and not use to much or little so that you don't fly off or fall off and break something. Water walking is much the same way except you are doing this in an constant stream so that you can stand upon the water. If I stop the chakra flow, I fall in." He decided it might not be best if demonstrated this so he walked back onto the dry land.

"I want to see if you can also perform this technique. Be careful, the consequences for either too much or too little are the same as tree walking, except there's a chance for you to get wet." He then walked over to a small rock and sat down, pulling out his favorite porn novel. 'I've missed you so much, it's been almost an hour since I've read you! oh, whats this?' He suddenly began to giggle, making the already wet Shikamaru fall in again.

"That's not enough chakra there Nara." Kakashi said not looking up from his book. Shikamaru grudgingly climbed out of the water, muttering troublesome the entire time. Sasuke was having the opposite effect, due to him trying to force more chakra into the technique like he usually did with his jutsu. The result was him constantly flying into a tree.

By now those two had removed their shirts to prevent them from getting ruined by the water, and Naruto still hasn't attempted it yet. Kakashi noticed this and looked up to see him still standing there, looking a bit worried. "Is something wrong Naruto?" the other two also looked at him wondering why he hasn't done anything. That is, Shikamaru didn't know why, but Sasuke did.

Sasuke knew about his 'condition' for a long time now, and he still never really saw exactly HOW his limbs were attached. He could tell that Naruto was worried about what his new sensei and his other teammate would think, after all, they thought his extra arms were just some puppeteering trick. Sasuke was the only one who knew otherwise.

Naruto still hasn't responded to Kakashi and he was starting to get a bit worried. He decided to repeat his question. "Naruto, is there something wrong?" he asked, a bit faster then his first. It was then that Naruto finaly decided to remove his trench-coat. He left his shirt on underneath, already regretting to have taken off his precious coat.

Kakashi and Shikamaru stared at him with surprise written on their faces. His true disability was just revealed, at least mostly. He had not let anyone see that his legs were fake either, even Sasuke didn't know about his missing natural legs. Naruto noticed their eyes and said something before removing his mask.

"Now you see the true me. Please do not expect a response from me without my mask on, for that is the only way I can speak." After he said that he unfastened some straps behind his head and gently placed his mask by his coat as he performed the same seal his other teammates had.

Kakashi was about to say something, but a look from his student Sasuke told him not to. He guessed that he would have to bring that up later. He reluctantly continued to read his book, occasionally glancing at his student, as did Shikamaru.

Naruto had fared much better then his teammates, having managed to actually stand on the water more then three seconds, or about half of one if you consider Sasuke. His years of controlling strings had given him a large advantage in the realm of control for Naruto, having only fell in ounce and putting in to much chakra twice, resulting in his flying back to his coat, nearly crushing his mask.

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**Tazuna's house, 8:23PM **

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Tazuna's daughter, Tsunami, was currently cooking diner along with one of the ninja her father had brought protect him from Gato. She believes that the others called him 'Naruto'. Apparently he had at some point learned how to cook. When he had offered her some help with making diner she felt both surprised and relieved, for there was no way she could possibly make enough for her father, her son, and her guests in time.

Naruto was currently stirring a bowl of curry that Tsunami had instructed him to make. He was also thinking of how to explain his condition to his sensei and Shikamaru. The real reason he was in there helping her cook was so that he could get some time away from the now prying eyes of his team. He knew that at some point they would ask about his arms, and he just didn't want it to be now.

He lifted the ladle to test the curry and to his displeasure, it was done. "Is the rice done Tsunami-san?" he asked as he quickly went over the explanation in his head. "Hai, it is. I assume the curry's finished as well?" Naruto nodded and Tsunami went to retrieve bowls for her family and her guests.

Ounce Naruto had finished delivering the food to those at the table, he sat down himself. As he took off his mask, he instantly felt two pairs of eyes on him, but he ignored them, and continued to eat in silence. That is, until the owner of the empty seat decided to make an appearance.

The one known as 'Inari', Tsunami's son, began to talk in a low voice, "He'll kill you, you know..." "What was that?" Naruto asked when he placed his mask back on his face, curious as why the buy was acting in such a way. "Gato's to powerful, He'll kill you all!" He yelled. He was about to run back upstairs when Naruto asked something, "Why do you say that?" He may not have been showing it on his face or his tone of voice, but he was getting starting to get irritated.

"He's to powerful, you'll never be able to defeat him." He said, his eyes downcast. " I doubt that." Was Naruto's reply. He removed his mask and reached for his chopsticks again, only to be stopped by Inari speaking up ounce more. "You have no idea of what he's done! All the pain he's caused...I bet you wouldn't even understand the pain we've had to live though..."

That did it. In an instant a loud *snap* from Naruto's chopsticks were herd. He tossed his broken chopsticks toward the ground and stood up to face the small child. As soon as he did, killer intent spread though the entire room, focusing on Inari. Sasuke knew this was going to happen the moment he saw the kid enter the room.

"Don't understand pain you say?" His voice started out soft, gradually getting louder as he continued speaking. "You mean to say that I know nothing of pain? I know more about pain then you'll ever know!" It was at that moment that he threw off his trench-coat to reveal all four of his arms, three clearly having been made of wood. "Do you think that I didn't know of pain when they tor off my my arm!? My legs!? Do you think I knew nothing of pain when my screams tore my own vocal cords!?" His mask started to spark a bit, indicating to Naruto that he was getting to loud.

He calmed himself a little bit before he made his last statement, "I know more about pain then anyone should ever know." He said this so softly that even Kakashi barely heard it. With that done, the pressure everyone in the room had felt vanished. He grabbed his coat and ran out the room.

Kakashi looked over to see that the boy Inari had already run upstairs. Tsunami began to speak up, to apologize for her son's behavior, but was stopped by Kakashi. "There is no need to apologize Tsunami-san. Please, excuse me for a minute." With that, he walked out of the house to talk with his student.

It didn't take him long though as Naruto was sitting on the roof looking a bit upset that he had let his emotions get the better of him. "Is there something you want to say Naruto?"

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**Tazuna's bridge, three days later.**

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Naruto and the others walked along the bridge. It had covered in a layer of mist so thick, Kakashi could've cut though as if it were butter. As they walked along the bridge, Kakashi noticed that some of the workers scattered about it laying face down. When Kakashi checked their pulses, he found that they had been knocked out.

Ounce they moved the passed out workers off the bridge, they continued forward. After they spent about three minutes walking cautionatly, they herd a low whistling sound. They all dodged just as a large sword swept above them, only to have to jump out of the way of another. After they landed they herd the laughter of two likely insane men.

They saw two dark figures slowly emerging from the mist, or the mist slowly moving for them. The taler of the two spoke first, "Ah! You've finally showed up! Me and Zabuza were starting to get bored. If you took too much longer we would've just started chopping up those workers for fun!" As he finished speaking, the mist was out of the way enough for them to see the two men clearly.

They recognized one of the two as Zabuza, the second of the two, looked a bit odd. He absolutely toward over his partner and sword was wrapped in bandages. However odd it is to wrap a sword like that, his face made them gawk. What little of his skin that showed was a light blue and his were like that of a fish. They could tell from his malicious smile that all his teeth were pointed. His overall appearance was like that of a shark.

They both wore straw hats on their heads, which they gladly tossed aside. When they did it was obvious from their head-bands that they were both missing-nin from Kiri, and their cloaks told that they were Akatsuki. The shark-like man spoke ounce more, "Oye, Zabuza, I thought you said they were tough? they look like a bunch of kids with a weird looking jonin."

Kakashi's students would've snickered at that, but they were to focused on protecting the bridge builder to even notice that he'd spoken. The smaller of the two spoke up, "You don't recognize him Kisame? That's Kakashi, the copy-cat-nin, Konoha's strongest jonin." while Kakashi's students raised their eyebrows at that, the one called 'Kisame' merely snickered.

"I know who he is, he just doesn't look that tough to me." Kakashi took their talking for a good chance to attack. He had already revealed his sharingan, which Sasuke looked at oddly, so now he began his assault. He drew his kunai and thew a flurry of shuriken as he ran towards them.  
He didn't even notice the smirk on Kisame's face as he approached.

As he ran, Zabuza seemed to disappear as the mist consumed him, Kisame just stood still, like he didn't even see Kakashi. A scream from Tazuna made him stop dead in his tracks and turn around for a brief moment. That brief moment was all it took for Kisame to closed the distance and bring a long slash down across his back.

The sudden pain made Kakashi fall to the ground, he looked up in time to hear Kisame speak, "Kakashi-san, I thought that as the strongest in Konoha that you'd know not to turn around, even more so with your little sharingan there." Kisame's smirk vanished as Kakashi burst into water.

"Ah. So that's how it's gonna be eh? Well then, let's have some fun at least!" After he said that he began to run though a series of hand-seals, already knowing were Kakashi was. "**Suiton: Suikōdan no Jutsu!**(1)" After he yelled the technique, a shark formed out of the mist and head strait for Kakashi's position.

'Shit!' was all Kakashi thought as he attempted to doge the shark, he succeeded in that only for it to turn around and come right back. He ran though hand-seals as fast as he could for the only move he thought could stop the shark."**Chidori!**" He yelled as he slammed the ball of lighting into the water shark.

When the shark exploded, he herd movement from behind him. He turn in time to stop Kisame flow lopping of his head. Kakashi expected the man to look weary from using a high level technique such as that, but he wasn't even fazed. Kisame decided to point that out. "Don't you worry Kakashi-san, I'm just getting started." He said with a smirk.

'oh no...' was all that ran though his mind. He would need to come up with a pretty good plan if he were to defeat this man.

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**With the Genin, at the time of the scream.**

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Not long after their sensei left to go after the enemy, the one called Zabuza appeared behind Tazuna, about to kill all three with one swing. Tazuna's ridiculously girly scream stopped that plan. The Genin Sasuke whirled around in time to stop his swing. Ounce they got a clear look at the enemy, they began a well organized attack.

Naruto quickly unsealed his puppet Enjin-before anyone could even blink if I might add-and got him to flank Zabuza. Shikamaru was about to perform his signature jutsu when he was kicked to the side of his head, effectively knocking him out. "I'm not gonna let that happen again!" Zabuza said as he swung his sword to his left, almost cutting though Naruto's puppet.

Sasuke ran though seals for his clans technique, albeit slower then his sensei could. "**Katon: Gōkakyu no Jutsu!**" He yelled, but Zabuza was much faster at performing hand-seals then he was. "**Suiton: Suijinheki!**" He yelled, and ounce the flames were nothing but smoke, he ran though more hand-seals, at blindingly fast speed.

"**Suiton: Suiryūdan no Jutsu!**" After he uttered his technique, his defensive wall of water transformed into a ferocious water dragon. The dragon flew strait towards Naruto, who had been attempting to coradinate an attack with his puppet. He only had time to move it in front of him to protect himself. The force of the water completely splintered his prized puppet when the technique landed.

"Damn, That was my first one too..." he muttered. at that moment he pulled out his other arms and activated a few chakra operated devices. With those ready he ran strait forward, a large blade attached to his upper left arm attempted a strike against Zabuza. He blocked it simply like he were doing nothing more then swatting a fly. "That all you got brat?" he then noticed a peculiar object on what looked to be his lower left arm.

'that looks a lot like a shenbon launch-SHIT!' he brought his sword up in time for a flurry of senbon bounce off of it. after that he had to keep blocking strikes from three swords, two in and on his top arms, and one on his lower right. 'What the hell is this kid!' he thought. he the herded a light click from his senbon arm, signifying the coming of another flurry of senbon, he had no choice but to use another of his swords techniques.

"**Chikai!**" He yelled as he began to twirl his sword, blue light visible from the action. When the senbon hit his strange chakra shield, they bounced back with force towards Naruto. Being in such close proximity to his target, he only had time to move his arms in a defensive position, all but his real one.

After the senbon imbeded into his arms, the ones that were visible began to turn a bit purple, making them almost useless. Naruto was forced to make his prosthetic arms drop to his side out of fear that they'd break. Zabuza spoke when he saw this, "Whatever poison you use seemed to have backfired hasn't it? It looks like your the one at a disadvantage now!" He began to laugh in an evil tone.

Sasuke, who had been trying to wake Shikamaru to no anvil, Interrupted his moment of gloating by shoving two kunai into his legs, making him drop to the ground. "Why you little..." He was interrupted by the sound of clapping.

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**With Kakashi, during the middle of his team's and Zabuza's fight.**

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Kakashi was at a loss, he had used most of his techniques on his opponent with little effect. In fact, the one who really suffered from those moves was Kakashi. Using his saringan for so long was staring to take it's tole, and he had little chakra left from all his moves.

Kisame however, was only mildly sweating while Kakashi was gasping for air. He had used only about a fourth of his chakra, and he was actually happy at that. It had been long since he had to use much more then a sixth. He decided to voice this.

"Kakashi-san, I'm proud of you here, I've barely used more then a forth of my chakra, that may not seem like much, but for someone of my strength, that's a great deals has been an awesome fight, better then any I've had in years! So I'd like to congratulate you, and to say goodbye. For I can tell you won't last much longer." But while He had been saying this, Kakashi was performing one of the few jutsu that he had enough chakra for.

"**Kuchiyose: Doton: Tsuiga no Jutsu!**" as he finished, Kisame suddenly found himself trapped by the maws of several large ninkin. "well this is unexpected." Kisame said as he held a smirk, showing those sharp pearly whites of his. "**Chidori!**" Kakashi yelled, and slammed his fist though his opponent's chest.

Kisame simply grinned, some blood coming from his mouth. "well Kakashi-san, I didn't need that lung anyway-" he was interrupted by the sounds of clapping. Everyone that had just been battling, along with Tazuna, turned their heads to the source of the clapping. They were met by a short and fat man along with a decently sized army of mercenaries.

"Ah! It seems that my plan has worked perfectly, the ninja are all weakened, now I can finish the job." He raised his hand to signal his small army to attack, but Zabuza interrupted that. "Did you mean that you were going to kill us as well as them!?" He demanded, while pulling the kunai from his legs and standing up.

Gato saw how one of his ninja still had enough energy to stand, and he began to stutter. "Uh well..no I..." He was interrupted by his second ninja, who had just a second ago had a hand though his chest. "Now now, there's no need to lie to us." Kisame coughed up some blood as he spoke

Now both Kisame and Zabuza were slowly walking toward their former charge. Gato couldn't form any coherent words, "I uh.. just.. umm.." At that moment the two Akatsuki faced each other. "Plan B?" Zabuza asked. "Plan B." Kisame replied, and then in seconds they were ripping though the small army.

Team seven and Tazuna just watched in awe and fear at the slaughter in front of them. They also heard some gasps from the townspeople behind them that arrived just a bit too late to fight. After The two men finished their assault oh Gato's army, they picked him up and asked him something.

"Gato-san, may I ask were your vault is?" Gato gulped out his answer, "It's behind my main office, the code is 52443! Please don't-" He was stopped by two swords ripping though his chest. After that, they tossed his corpse and turned to team seven. Kisame spoke. "Our problem is no longer with you, we consider this as a mission complete. We'll meet again I'm sure, if anything to finish our fight Kakashi-san." While he said this, he coughed several times. After they were finished, they disappeared from view.

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**The Great Naruto bridge, two days latter.**

* * *

Kakashi and the others were about to head off back to Konoha when they herd of what Tazuna had decided to name his bridge. Naruto and Kakashi eye-smiled, Shikamaru smirked, and Sasuke held his mouth open in disbelief. After recovering from the shocking news and negotiating how they would be paid, the team set off on a long journey back to Konoha.

They were going to report of their success, and Kakashi would inform the Hokage of the Akatsuki .

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**Chapter end.**

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(1)_**Jutsu moves**_

**Suiton: Suikōdan no Jutsu=Water Release: Water Shark Missile Technique**

**Chidori=Chidori**

**Katon: Gōkakyu no Jutsu=Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique**

**Suiton: Suijinheki=Water Release: Water Encampment Wall**

**Suiton: Suiryūdan no Jutsu=Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet Technique**

**Chikai=Block**

**Kuchiyose: Doton: Tsuiga no Jutsu=Summoning Technique: Earth Release: Tracking Fang Technique**

** _Author's note_**

**I hope you've enjoyed the chap! Up next will be the Chunin exams, wait did you see what happened to Naruto's puppet? This is horrible! What ever shall happen next?(If the hint isn't strong enough, read the next chap. I'm not gonna spoil the surprise.) I'll be sure not to update late in the next chap, I promise. Please review.**_~Malsyn_


	6. The Snake Shadow

**Hey all, sorry to be a bit late on this chap, had a few computer troubles. Enjoy the next chapter of The Strings that bind us. Please, Read and review.

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**Disclaimer:** ***Sigh*** **Yep. I still do not own Naruto.**

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**The strings that bind us.  
Chapter 6: The Snake shadow.**

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**Naruto's home, outskirts of Konoha.**

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When team seven arrived from their mission in waves, Naruto had to excuse himself. For he needed to make repairs on his prosthetics and begin work on a new puppet. After the fight on the bridge in waves, he had to detach his wooded arms and put on his only spare. He gathered what was left of his puppet Enjin and sealed him and his arms in one of his spare scrolls.

Kakashi decided to let all of his pupils go home and take the day off tomorrow. He also told them to meet at their usual spot at five on Monday. When his students left, he went on to tell the Hokage about their success. As well as their unexpected guests on the mission.

When Naruto reached his quaint little cottage, he opened the oak doors and ran strait for his workshop, which took up the better part of his home. After he reached his worktable, a decent metal table, he took out his scrolls and begun to unseal his puppet and prosthetics.

Naruto had carved a variety of seals into all of his wooden arms, but with the damage done to the arms by the poison, he knew that he had to be careful when he unsealed the various items. It was a long and grueling process that took him nearly three and a half hours to finish.

When had finally finished with that, he begun to search though his pathetic excuse for a puppet workshop. He had very little parts to make up his puppets and he often had to try and make them on his own. While he could do that, it usually took a bit longer then was necessary, and they didn't always turn out right. Maybe in a few years he could carve them perfectly, but not at that moment.

He often bought his puppet parts at the very few puppet shows in Konoha**(1)**, and he made trips up to Suna whenever he could. The result was him begin the owner of mismatched puppet parts that often didn't exactly match another peace. The arms on his puppet Enjin along with his were among his last matching pairs.

In result, he had to search deep amongst his speir puppet pieces and find things that matched. He was lucky, but he only found enough for himself. It seemed that he would need to make his next puppet, a bit mismatched looking. But even so, it gave him an idea.

He began to work on his own limbs first, saving his toughest challenge for latter. Having fixed and constructed his various arms for awhile now, he had everything just about memorized. Even so, he always kept his blueprints near, just in case he thought of something new that he should try to screeze in.

It only took him four hours, much shorter then his best, but he saw from his clock that it was starting to get late. He decided to attach his arms and make some dinner and coffee before he started work on his new puppet. With a bit of hesitance, he detached his temporary spare and begun the painful process of attaching his arms.

You see, his spare arm work smiler to other puppets, just pulling some strings, but prosthetics used strings formed directly from his chakra system. When Chiyo worked on him all those years ago, she messed a bit with it thus giving him the ability to use extra arms. Unfortunately, they needed to be exposed directly with the chakra system to work. His spare just needed Naruto to command it with at least one string, but his normal ones needed his chakra system.

In order for him to put his normal prosthetics on he needed to cut into the skin, and do to his other condition, he often needed to do that multiple times. To put it simply, it hurt. A lot.

Naruto picked up his only scalpel, and begun to make an incision were his upper left arm needed to be placed. He winched at the pain it caused. Using an mirror to get a better look at the small device in his shoulder, he placed his arm in before it could heal over. And with a slight popping sound, his arm was in place.

He tested it by flexing his fingers on his hand before he begun his others. After several painful minutes later, he looked over his new look. To be honest, he was proud of his latest model. He had taken an idea from an old showing a while back and added it in his arms. In order to prevent events such as last time, he had placed iron plating over his fake arms.

There were various marks on the iron plates that indicated moving parts or hidden features. The only really tricky part was carving his usual seals onto the plates. It also surprised him that they barely felt any heavier. He figured with all that metal on them that it would weigh them down. Luckily for him, they didn't.

He then loosened the straps of his face mask and made his way to his kitchen. It wasn't a very large kitchen he'd admit, but it did satisfy his needs. After placing his mask on the counter, he pulled out some of his ramen and some coffee. When he had finished his dinner, he gathered up whatever of his coffee was left and made his way back into his workshop for a long night.

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**Monday, 7:12 **

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As usual, Kakashi was running late, and like always, his team was lazing about. Naruto and Shikamaru were enjoying a game of Shogi, well that is Naruto was enjoying the game. Shikamaru just couldn't wrap his large mind around how he had lost four games in a row. Sasuke was enjoying his pacing and fuming about their sensei being late.

It wasn't long after Naruto put Shikamaru in checkmate that the scarecrow-nin had arrived, holding three slips of paper in his left hand with his arms crossed. Sasuke immediately begun to yell at Kakashi's lateness while the other two were putting away the game-board.

It was just after Sasuke started yelling about there being no such thing as ladder conventions that Kakashi played his trump card, "Oh, I guess you don't want to take the Chunin exams." His statement was met by his team staring at him in confusion. Like usual, Sasuke started speaking first. "What do you mean by Chunin exams?" He asked.

Kakashi eye-smiled. "I mean the exam you take to become a Chunin. It's pretty self explanatory."  
While his team sweat-dropped, He continued on with a better explanation. "In the Chunin exams, you take a number of tests that are designed to test you both physically and mentally. If you pass the expectations of those that are watching the exams, you will be advanced to Chunin. Many ninja from across the world come together at this event. This is our year for hosting them."

The three Genin looked gleeful at the chance to advance in rank. Shikamaru decided to speak a question that the others were of no doubt thinking. "Where do we sign?" Kakashi responded by giving them the papers he held. "Just know, if you feel that your not up to taking the exams, your more then welcome to not take them. If you do decided to take the exams, proceed to room 303 on the third floor of the ninja academy on Friday and be there by twelve."

With that, Kakashi vanished in a whirl of leaves. A few moments latter, the rest of team seven decided to go out for lunch. Along the way they were discussing about the Chunin exams and how it would be an excellent way to gain advancement. Naruto was having some doubts however, for he wasn't sure of how the other ninja would take of his...disability.

But before he had much time to think about that, the team started hearing some rather odd noises, almost like the screams of a small child. When Sasuke and Shikamaru thought of this, they hurried on toward the source of the noise, an alley a few blocks up. Naruto decided that he wouldn't be left behind, so he ran after his teammates.

When he caught up to them, he saw a rather amusing sight. Well, funny to him at least. A small child wearing a pair of goggles with a long scarf around his neck was being held by what he figured was an ninja wearing pajamas. He didn't find the fact that the child was being held against his will funny, more the ninja holding him.

Sasuke decided to make a comment about the odd ninja's attire. "Yo, whats with the kitty pajamas." The pajama wearer turned to the source of the rude comment, and tossed the child he held onto the ground. "What was that punk!? You wanna' say that again!?" As he said that, he grabbed the large bandaged object behind him and slammed it on the ground. It's wrappings falling off slightly.

Naruto, recognizing this as a puppet, decided to cut in. "How bout' you pick on someone your own size. Suna ninja." The Suna ninja growled a bit and spoke though his teeth. "You say something shorty?" Naruto glared at the man and pulled up his left sleave, revealing a plated arm with intricate markings on it.

Just before he was about to summon his newest puppet, an oddly dead voice cut in. "Kankuro, enough. We are needed elsewhere." The now identified Kankuro froze at the sound of his teammates voice. "But ga..Gaara.." Kankuro barely stuttered out his teammates name. Naruto could easily see the fear on his face.

Just as he let his left arms sleeve drop back, another Suna nin appeared, as well as the one called Gaara appearing in a whirl of sand between his two teammates. Gaara spoke up, ignoring Kankuro completely. "I apologize for my brothers rudeness Konoha nin. Please, tell me you name."

Naruto raised an eyebrow when he spoke of his teammate as a brother, he felt it odd how one would fear his brother to such a degree. With that in mind, he kept wary while he spoke. "My name is Uzumaki Naruto. These are my teammates Uchina Sasuke, and Nara Shikamaru. You are here for the Chunin exams yes?" He asked in a voice as dead as Gaara's.

Gaara felt a ping of surprise at this ninja's metallic voice, but he kept that surprise from showing. "Yes, we are from Sunagakure as you might have guessed. This is my sister Temari, and you have met my brother Kankuro. I hope to see you in the exams, Naruto-san." With that said, Gaara and his siblings turned and left them.

When the ninja had gone, Shikamaru and Sasuke went over to see if the child was alright, while Naruto stared out the alleyway. His fists were clenched and trembling. For some reason, he didn't like that red-headed ninja, and he wasn't sure why. All he could feel was a great hatred for the boy coming from deep in his chest.

"I hope to see you to, Gaara-san." he mumbled. With that said and the little boy gone, he and his team walked back toward their original destination. They all new what they were gonna' do. They would enter the Chunin exams.

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**Hokage's office, same time.**

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The Sandaime just couldn't believe who was in his office. Sure he knew that one day they would meet again, but he likely figured that it would be in battle. He just couldn't wrap his brain around how his former student sat across from asking if his village could participate in the Chunin exams.

His Former student Orochimaru was just sitting across from him wearing formal white robes with a purple sash tied at his waist. He also wore an hitai-ite with a single note in it's center. For some reason, he wore it over his eyes. "Hokage-sama, did you hear me?" His former student's voice broke him out of whatever trance he had just been in.

"I'm sorry, were you saying that you wanted to place your village in the exams?" the Hokage looked at Orochimaru like he would attack at any instant, but the snake sannin, or hebikage**(2)** as he liked to call himself, remained still. "Yes that is correct. My village Otogakure has many promising Genin that I would like to have test their skills and become Chunin."

Sarutobi started to zone out again while contemplating why he would allow this. After a few minutes of silence, Orochimaru decided to break it once more. "Hokage-sama, do you find it odd?" The Hokage jumped back a bit in surprise. "What do you mean?"

The old sannin frowned a bit before he spoke. "I mean my being hear, do you find it odd?" He waited a few moments before continuing. "The fact that I'm hear after so many years. You must find it strange. "The Sandaime sighed after a minute. "Yes I do find it a bit strange. Would you mind telling me my old student?" he asked.

"I suppose I should." the sannin sighed. "You remember my old technique yes? The one that made me leave from hear all those years ago?" Sarutobi flinched at the memory, and all the deaths that lead up to it. "Yes I remember."

Orochimaru took a breath before continuing, "Well, it seems that my immortal technique was a bit flawed. The technique needed me to take a new host body every three years, that is why I don't look a day over thirty." The Sandaime frowned at this new information. "Go on." he said

"My old goal was to take control of an Uchina body so I could gain use of the Saringan, but it seems that the Uchina's eyes only belong to the Uchina." as he said that, he began to take off his sound headband, reveling his broken eyes.

They looked to be a cross between a normal Saringan and his students old eyes, the red was replaced by yellow and the slited pupils were sourounded by tomoe. The eyes were also covered in what looked to be cracks. Along with that, they looked a bit more faded and milky than others.

"I'm blind Hokage-sama. Due to some flaw in my original jutsu, The Uchina's eyes made me blind. Besides that, I am however immortal. In the sense that I shall never age. Due to the nature of the Uchina's body structure, I no longer need a new host body" As the old Hokage listed to this, he started to feel the tiniest bit of pity for his old pupil's blindness, but he quickly buried it when he heard why it was so.

"After I realized it's failure, I began preparations to create a new village, to help repent my old sins. Before, all I wanted was power, but now, I want to help others achieve strength. I have been operating my village for little over ten years now, and I want to see my people show what they have learned." He finished this with a smile on his lips, and pulled his headband back over his eyes.

"Please, Hokage-sama, will you let my Genin show their true strength? Even if it were only for just this once." After that, the Sandaime leaned back a bit in his chair in thought. After a few long and agonizing minutes, he spoke.

"Alright. Orochimaru, the hebikage of Otogakure, I accept your request for admittance into Konoha's Chunin exams. Please have all of your ninja that are going to participate in the exams at room 303 of the ninja academy on Friday by twelve. Here are the admittance forums." After that, he handed His old student a small stack of papers. Orochimaru smiled. 'Just wait till you see what's in store for you my old sensei. Just you wait'

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**Ninja Academy, Friday 10:31 **

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The members of team seven met out in front of the academy just outside the main doors. After what happened on Monday, they knew what they were going to do. They would enter the Chunin exams and show their true strength. They wanted to test their skills and see how far their training has brought them.

When they walked in, they heard a commotion just above them. They ran up and saw a trio of Genin attempting to get past two Chunin guards. Naruto narrowed his eyes when he saw the sign above the door, it read 303. Even though he spent a good part of his life at the academy, he knew that any ninja worth their salt would recognize this wasn't the third floor and that the number on the sign was just a low-level genjutsu.

When Sasuke made to try and help the green-clad member trying to get past the guards, Naruto put his arm out and blocked his friend from attempting anything. When Sasuke was attempting to protest, Naruto spoke in a whisper, "Pay no mind to this, they are just acting. Ignore it and keep moving." Sasuke made an attempt to protest, "But the sign..." It was then that he could sense the genjutsu, and he immediately understood. He looked over to Nara and he also gave a nod to keep moving.

With that settled, they made a move to walk right past the odd trio. Just as they were about to pass group, Naruto saw something enter his vision, fast. Out of instinct, he move his left arm out to block. A solid *Clang* was heard as the green-clad Genin entered the others vision.

By now they could get a clear look at this Mysterious ninja. He had a bowl cut and had a ridiculous pair of eyes. A Konoha head-band was worn around his waist as a belt. His other teammates stepped up after seeing that their charade had been foiled. One appeared to be a Hyuga and the other seemed to be a more normal looking kunoichi.

The Hyuga spoke to his spandex wearing teammate. "You dobe, look what you've done. You just had to ruin the plan. Come on, let's get out of here." As he said that, his eyes drifted to Naruto's arm were he was confident he heard a metallic clang. "I am sorry Neji-san, I just recognize this as a genius of hard work like myself. Please, I apologize. I am Rock Lee, Konoha's green beast. Please tell me, who might you be?"

Naruto looked over at the ninja in front of him. In all honesty, He disturbed Naruto a bit. Nobody should have eyes of that intensity. Hesitantly, he replied. "My name is Uzumaki Naruto. These are my teammates, Uchina Sasuke, and Nara Shikamaru." After that, the so called 'Green-beast' bowed his head.

"It is a pleasure to meet you Naruto-san. As is you Sasuke-san, Nara-san. This is my team, Neji, and Tenten." He looked like he was about to say more, but Neji told him that they needed to get going. After a quick goodbye, he ran after his team. Naruto and his team proceeded up the stairs while Lee's team went back down the hall, likely looking for another way up.

When Neji thought that Naruto's team was out of sight, he activated his Byakugan. He was shocked at what he saw. The ninja called Naruto appeared to have move then just two arms. He figured this to be some sort of rare bloodline, but he could not think of any that would involve multiple limbs other then the extinct kumo(3) clan's. And that one always involved a total of six arms.

He searched a bit more and was shocked to see numerous gadgets and weapons in three of the four arms. "A half-puppet..." he mumbled. His teammate Tenten asked what it was he said. He responded with just a simple warning. "You two need to look out from the one with the trench coat. He's dangerous." He turned to meet the eyes of his teammates when he said this, but found one of them missing. "lee..." he mumbled through his now clenched teeth.

Not far off, Naruto and his team were passing a large gym area. They were about to pass though another door to the main hall of the third floor, but a loud voice from down below made them pause. "Naruto! I challenge you! Fight me right here, let me test my skills against a fellow genius of hard work!"

Naruto narrowed his eyes at the green-clad Genin and spoke in a humorless monotone. "If your wish is pain, then I shall grant it." After that, he jumped from the small balcony to meet his challenger face to face. Lee shivered a bit at his dead metallic voice but dropped into stance any way. "Your move" He spoke, trying to calm his nerves.

"No, please, you first." Naruto replied in the same tone as before. Lee didn't hesitate at all and instantly disappeared, and a clang was heard. Naruto stood with his left arm hung out defensively, Lee just stood with his leg still out from the kick in surprise. 'How did he...not even Gai-sensei can move that fast.'

He shook the thought from his head and moved back into stance before launching a flurry of kicks. After each hit, a clang was heard. This continued for a small while, until Naruto decided to get offensive. He began with simply grabbing Lee's leg and slamming him to the ground. With lee dazed at the force of the blow, Naruto began his assault.

He simply picked up Lee's body and began beating it. The punches didn't even seem to all come from his free arm. It didn't take long before Lee made an attempt for his signature move, the Front Lotus.

He began by simply kicking Naruto back, stunning him for a moment, and began another flurry of punches. With Naruto dazed from the kick, he wasn't able to successfully block. He soon found himself up in the air, Lee appeared behind him, his arm bandages beginning to come lose.  
It was then an odd turtle appeared. "Lee!" it called.

With Lee distracted, Naruto righted himself in air and made to land near his teammates. When he turned back, he could hear a loud conversation between what appeared to be clones. Naruto motioned his teammates to follow as he left out the door, the two green-clad ninja not even noticing. "Troublesome..." Shikamaru mumbled.

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**Class 303, 11:42 **

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Once team seven finally reached room 303, they were met by their porn reading sensei. He lowered his book an inch and waved to them. "Yo" Kakashi could see that his students were a bit confused about why he was there, as if reading his mind, Sasuke spoke up. "What are you doing here Kakashi-sensei?" he asked.

Kakashi eye-smiled. "I'm hear to make sure you all showed up, and to wish you all good luck." Shikamaru spoke this time. "What do you mean by if we all showed up?" Kakashi snapped his book shut and put it in his vest. "I mean exactly that, to make sure you all showed up. If one of you hadn't, then none of you would have been able to enter." he saw some anger flash across his student's faces.

"You mean we all needed to sign up? Why didn't you tell us that!" Sasuke spat. Kakashi, remaining cool the whole time replied, "I didn't tell you that you needed to all sign up so that none of you would've been pressured to join in the exams. I wanted you all to believe that you could pass instead of being dragged into them.

He saw realization settle on his students. "I think you need to get a move on, you don't want them to start without you now, do you?" With that said, his students gave him their papers and walked on though the doors. "Good luck" he called before the door closed.

Naruto and his team were met by the stairs of an entire room chuck full of ninja. Naruto could spot the two who he knew wanted to fight with him. The Suna nin were gathered near the front, both Gaara and Kankuro meeting his stairs. He also saw Lee's team conversing amongst themselves in a back corner.

He looked to the right just as he heard the squeals of two kunoichi. "Sasuke-kun! We've come to save you from the demon boy's brainwashing!" was the synchronized cry from a blond haired and a pink haired ninja.

"Get away from me you freaks!" Sasuke cried as he tried to hide behind Shikamaru. "Troublesome..." he muttered. Naruto ignored the comical spectacle behind him and drifted to the front, just so he wouldn't be noticed like the much noisier ninja behind him. He heard a barely audible noise just as a white haired ninja threw up.

It was then that tall Jonin he recognized as 'Ibiki' walked in yelling "Shut up and sit down you brats!" All the Genin did as they were told. They listened to him giving out the directions of the exam and begun to move to their assigned seats.

After they were all seated, and the test papers passed out, Ibiki motioned for them to begin.  
Naruto looked over the test and saw that the information placed on the tests were way above what a Chunin would actually know. He took a quick glance around him a saw others using various techniques to cheat without their being caught.

Even though the test needed you to use some sort of way to gather the necessary information, Naruto easily marked in the correct answers. After that, he waited patiently for the tenth question to be given. The minutes ticked by slowly, so he used this time to look over the various techniques used by his competition.

He heard some barking from behind him and saw the Suna ninja Gaara use some sort of sand technique. He saw some mirrors placed on the ceiling being manipulated by a ninja he couldn't see. 'Now how did those get up there...' After a few more minutes of his information gathering, he heard Ibiki clear his throat.

"Now it is time for the tenth question. You may chose to either accept this question or drop out now. Just know that if you don't pass this last question, you will fail and never be able to take the Chunin exam's again." A few ninja protested about how that was unfair, Ibiki countered by telling them of how it was his test and therefor his rules.

Nothing happened for a minute, but then the Genin began to pour out. He was left with less then half of the original number of Genin. It made Ibiki smile. "No one else?" He was met with silence. "Alright then. For everyone left, You all...Pass"

Various gasps were heard after that and one ninja even asked about the lack of a tenth question.  
Ibiki responded by teaching them that they would one day have to gather information during a mission or that they may be captured and tortured to give up information. Just as he was about to announce the next proctor, something happened to crash though the window.

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**Chapter end

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**(1)Puppet shows, an event in wich puppet masters gather to display and sell their puppets.**

**(2)Hibikage, Snake shadow.**

**(3) Kumo, an ancint clan that lived in the area now known as land of sound. literal translation is spider.**

**I Hope you've enjoyed this chapter, I countinue to make increasingly longer chapters and plan on the next one to break the 5000 mark. Please stick around for the seventh installment of The strings that bind us, will be meeting a rather insane ninja next chapter. I Bet this box of cookies that nobody can guess who it is. Till next time!**_~Malsyn_


	7. The Insane proctor

**Hello my friends! I was pleased with the last chapter getting more reviews then the last few before that one, so I've decided to make the seventh chapter early! Enjoy the conclusion to chapter six. I've fixed some things in the last few chapters that were pointed out out by one of my reviewers(Lednacek)****, so they should sound a bit better. Keep in mind that I'll be fixing things in my latter chapters as the story goes on. If you spot something that should be fixed, please tell me or it may just end up staying there forever. Also, thank you Salamander Hanzo**** for the delicious gargle blasters, I'm justhaving some trouble putting my brain back. In any case, Enjoy! Please, read and review.

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**Disclaimer: I do not own 'Naruto'. Wish I did though, then I could fix it*Insane smile*.  
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**The strings that bind us.  
Chapter 7: The Insane proctor.**

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**Konoha Ninja Academy, Room 303.**

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It was to the shock of the many promising Genin left from the first part of the Chunin exams that when Ibiki was about to announce the second proctor of the exams, a large ball shot though the window on his right side. 'The hell?' 'Troublesome.' 'What the fuck is that!?' were the thought that ran though Naruto's, Shikamaru's, and Sasuke's minds, respectively.

When it was in about the middle of the room, in front of Ibiki, the ball opened up to revel a square cloth fabric with some words on it, and kunai that had been tied on the corners lodged them shelves around the front of the room. After that an odd looking women jumped though the broken and in front of the cloth. The cloth read 'The ever sexy and single Anko Mitarashi'.

"Anko, your early." Ibiki stated, his head poking out from behind the cloth. Anko laughed a bit nervously before apologizing and complementing the first proctor on the low number of Genin, then she turned and addressed the still shocked Genin. "Alright brats! I'm Anko Mitarashi, Proctor of the second are to all meet me at the 44th battle training zone for the second part of the Chunin exams!"

She hopped over to the window and was about to make a move to the second area when she noticed how none of the Genin moved from their seats. "Move it brats! You have five minutes or you'll fail!" That got them going. All but a select few jumped out the window after Anko. The others were people who knew how to shunshin.

It didn't take long for everyone to make it to the second exam area. Anko was a bit displeased that everyone was already there before her five minutes were up. As soon as her mental clock told it's been five, she spoke up to get their attention. "Shut the hell up you stupid brats!" She then started to drone on about the rules of the second exam, and the name of the very lovely forest of death.

Naruto started to tune it all out, and made the mistake of muttering under his breath, "Come on start the test already you insane bi-!" It was then that he was met with the choice of either dodging, or catching a kunai out of the air. He made the more subtle of the two and cocked his head to the left, dodging the kunai.

Not long after that and to the shock of those near him, Anko was holding another right against his throat. "I'm sorry did you say something?" She asked in a pleasant voice that did not at all match the evil look on her face when she licked the small trickle of blood the sharp kunai drew. He was saved the need to say anything as a ninja from behind them who held the previous kunai in her hand spoke up.

"Is this yours?" She asked in sickeningly sweet voice. Naruto turned his head a bit to get a look at the kunoichi. She wore a fish-net undershirt with an navy blue tank top, a short skirt of the same color was also worn with a sound head band used as a belt. A pair of standard ninja sandals were worn. On top of it all she had on a long black battle cloak much like Anko's and Naruto's. She also held a hint of blood-lust in her blood-red eyes.

They held a brief conversation before Anko returned to the front and finished giving the rules and instructions for the test. Naruto told them that he would hold onto the heaven scroll they were issued. His teammates watched in amazement as he sealed the scroll into a seal on his left arm. "let's go." he said before they dashed of to their assigned gate.

Elsewere, the sound ninja from before was issuing commands before they set out into the forest. "Orochimaru-sama has told me that our main target is that blond boy. He needs him for us to complete our goal. You two go and find us an earth scroll, I'll take care of the fox boy." And after she said that, the gates swung open and they were off.

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**A few hours later, with team 7.**

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The members of team seven had already found and sealed an earth scroll that they had stolen from a group of Kiri ninja, and they were making their way to the tower off in the distance. Unsurprisingly however, Sasuke wanted to take a rest, complaining about needing to use the bathroom. Naruto replied by telling him that they were almost there, the Nara just muttered something about troublesome Uchinas and blonds.

Somehow though, Sasuke managed to win the small argument and the team was currently waiting for their Uchina to emerge from the bushes. It was about ten minutes later that Naruto started to get a bit worried, Shikamaru just muttered on about troublesome juice drinks and duck-but haired Uchinas. Naruto, who was about to go look for Sasuke, felt a pang of evil chakra.

"Get down!" Naruto yelled, pulling out his third and forth arms. Shikamaru and Naruto ducked down just in time as large balls of shadow flew over their heads. After which the sound ninja from before emerged from the shadows a nearby tree. "Hmm...Perhaps your stronger then I thought fox boy." She said as she began running though several hand-seals before biting her thumb and slamming her hand on the ground.

"**Kuchiyose no Jutsu!(1)**" she yelled as a large plume of smoke appeared. When the smoke cleared, Naruto and Shikamaru were shocked to see an extremely large snake staring them down. With a motion from it's summoner, the snake rammed forward with the intent to crush the two Genin. Naruto and Shikamaru jumped out of the way and into separate trees. The women jumped off the snake and ran for Naruto while the snake pursued a fleeing Nara.

"Stop, you stupid fox-kit!" she yelled while running through a few more hand-seals. "**Sen'eijashu!**" after that, she held up her arms and several snakes flew out her sleeves and at Naruto. Naruto, reacting quickly, focused some chakra onto some seals on his prosthetic arms as he drew an hidden sword from his coat.

"**Hitokugutsu no jutsu: Awatesaseru no ken!**" After he said that, five foot blades shot out of his puppet arms, and using them, he cut the snakes to pieces. As the bits of what was left of the snakes fell, he ran strait toward his opponent. "How interesting." she said just before her body was cut to threads. The pieces of her body then turned to mud.

'Mud clone..." Naruto thought as he scanned the forest around him, searching for his opponent. "Show yourself you coward!" He yelled. He then heard the woman's voice all around him. "Tell me, little fox boy. Do you know why they hate you? Why they call you a demon?" 'What the hell is she talking about?' was what ran though his mind. He knew full well that the villagers hated him, but he tried to deny it.

"Why do you keep calling me that? They don't hate me!" He yelled back at the women, still searching. Even though he denied it, he knew full well that it was true. He didn't lose those limbs for nothing. He then heard her laughing from all around before she spoke again. "Don't try and hide it. I know full well that you see their hatred. Do you even know who your father is?"

At that, Naruto froze. She barely left a pause before taking up were she left off. "Ah. I can see that you don't. Do you remember? All those years ago when that demon attacked?" He gasped, partly because he was staring to see the truth, and partly because he had no idea of how she knew about that old secret. "How do you know about that?" He said.

Ignoring his query, she went on. "That night all the way back then. twelve years to be precise. The young forth Hokage Minato was forced to face against the Kyubi no kitsune. On that fateful day, he had just been born a son. Using his knowledge of seals, he placed the Kyubi into the boy to save the village. Naruto, that boy was you. He hated his own son enough that he sealed the demon inside of you for his own purpose."

Naruto suddenly stopped breathing. 'It all fits.' He thought. 'October tenth, the day that the Kyubi attacked twelve years ago, my birthday.' He took a sharp intake of breath as he dropped his sword and released his seals on his other weapons, making them retract. He could tell that she was still talking, about how much his own village hated him and how he should join hers.

But he paid no attention. He could only fell anger of what his father did. What little he did hear her say just angered him further. 'My village hates me. My father hates me.' He thought. His anger steadily rising. He then began to fell a burning sensation around him as a red chakra began to form around him. A little ways off, the sound-nin could see it too. 'Oh shit.'

Naruto could feel his arms, all of them, start to seemingly burn. He looked down at his right and saw it start to grow claws, when he heard on odd cracking sound, he looked at his left. It to was forming claws, but they were of wood and metal. He felt it odd, him being able to feel in more then one limb, but he paid no mind. All he could truly feel was anger, and the need for blood.

He suddenly found that he could hear much better, see more clearly. It was because of this that he could hear the frantic heartbeat of the sound kunoichi behind him. The red chakra formed blades on his arms, much like his earlier technique, except much longer. Then he did a back flip and landed right in front of the frightened sound ninja. 'Shit, were the hell did I put that chakra-suppressing seal!'

She was the forced to jump away as Naruto began a savage attack. "Die!" He yelled, his mask bursting from the force of his own voice, ass he made a swipe for her neck. When she jumped back, Naruto simply shot forward, tackling her and sending them both flying back towards the ground. Her skin seemed to burn from his evil chakra. He held her in place with his three fake arms as he pulled back his real one, ready to land the killing blow.

Before he could strike, she managed to kick him in that oh so special place, making Naruto winch in pain, he let go of her for a brief moment, that was all she needed to grab a seal from her cloak. Before he recovered, she slammed it on his forehead. Naruto stumbled back from the shock of the sudden loss of chakra. The strings that operated his limbs dissipated and he collapsed in a pile.

The sound-nin then got up and walked over to were Naruto lay. "Naruto, my master has asked me to give you a gift before I left. Remember my name, Hebiko.**(2)**" After that, her neck seemed to elongate, and the next thing Naruto knew before he blacked out was searing pain on his left shoulder.

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**Hours later, near the tower.

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Sasuke was having an absolutely fantastic day. All he wanted was to use the bathroom and what did he get? A giant fucking snake coming right at him. He managed to dodge it for awhile until he met up with Shikamaru. He thought he and his teammate could fight off the snake chasing after him, but it turned out that Nara was also, being chased by a giant snake.

When they finally did defeat the snakes, they had to spend another hour searching for Naruto. When they did, he was just laying there on the ground blacked out. Sasuke and Shikamaru had to pick him up, and hide somewhere safely until he could wake. For he had to just seal up those scrolls. If he didn't, they could be in their own rooms at the tower by now.

And to top it all off, some sound Genin decided to ambush them."Kin, you get the Nara, I'll get the duck head. Zaku, finish off that blond kid." The mummified one ordered. "Got it Dosu." His two teammates said."What the hell did you just call me!?" Sasuke yelled, briefly running though some seals. "**Katon: Gōkakyu no Jutsu!**" He yelled.

Dosu's team was able to doge it easily, Kin and Zaku jumping to their intended targets. After a few minutes of feeble fighting, Shikamaru using his Kage mane to fight Zaku with kin, All five of them felt a sudden surge of vile evil chakra. "Naruto!" Sasuke yelled as he saw purple chakra swirl around his now standing friend.

Naruto didn't seem to hear him as he ran at two of the three sound ninja. The others could all get a clear look at him, flame like marks covered any of his exposed skin, even on his fake limbs. Zaku was able to push his teammate out of the way before Naruto reached him. When he did, he appeared right behind him holding his arms.

With one foot on Zakus back, he began to pull backwards on his arms, earning screams and two popping sounds before he dropped him."Zaku!" Dosu yelled as re ran over to grab his fallen teammate. When he did, he and Kin vanished with a slight whistling sound and a swirl of leaves. With that theat gone, the flame marks glowed red before receding back to his neck. After that, he fell on the ground. "Naruto!" Sasuke cried out again before rushing over to his teammate.

"Naruto, are you alright?" he asked, Naruto just held up his finger in a signal to wait. Then he rolled up his left sleeve and unsealed another of his face masks. After he strapped it in place, he answered Sasuke's question. "I'm sorry about that, my previous mask seemed to have exploded. And yes, I'm alright. Just a bit tired is all."

When that was said, Sasuke held his hand out to help Naruto up. Naruto gladly accepted. "Oye Naruto, who was that guy?" Shikamaru spoke while walking over to his two friends. "She called herself Hebiko. Come, we better get to the tower. It might still be the first day but it would be nice to sleep in an actual bed." Sasuke and Shikamaru nodded their heads in agreement before setting off. 'Troublesome women...' Shikamaru thought.

It wasn't long before they were standing in front a door that lead into the tower. Naruto unsealed the heaven and earth scrolls before they walked in. What they saw wasn't quite what they expected. There was a large unrolled scroll hanging up in front of them. "Something about heaven and earth. I can't read it to well there's a bunch of blanks." Naruto stated.

"teh...troublesome..Maybe you should unroll those scrolls and see what they say." Shikamaru said. Naruto nodded and hesitantly opened up the scrolls and tossed them in front of him when they began smoking. Iruka soon stood before them. After he explained what the large scroll on wall meant, then he led them up to some free rooms that they could use until the second exam was finished.

After Iruka left, Naruto told his teammates that he was going to take a look around. Shikamaru yawned and said he was going to just go to sleep and he'd look around tomorrow, same with Sasuke. So with his friends resting, Naruto proceeded downstairs to were he heard people talking.

When he was all the way down the steps, he found that it was a small cafeteria. He could also see some of the people that made it there the first day. There weren't many, just the Suna ninja, another leaf team, and one of the sound Genin teams. The one sound-nin that had attacked him before seemed to be upstairs, leaving her two teammates.

They weren't much to look at, they both wore navy blue hooded only difference between the two being that one was male the other female, and their sound head-bands. One wore her headband around her neck, the other had his sown onto his hood. Their faces were covered in shadows cast from their hoods.

Naruto decided to avoid the sound team and walked over to were the leaf team sat. This team was composed of the Hyuga Hinata, an Inuzaka named Kiba, and the Aburame, Shino. Anybody who knew anything about those clans could tell that this was a team that specialized in tracking. Naruto, no matter if he was a friend or not, was always wary of Shino.

"Shino, Kiba, Hinata. I did not expect to see you here so early in the test." Naruto said as he walked closer to the group. "I did however expect to see you Naruto." Shino stated while flashing his glasses. "N-Naruto." Hinata stuttered, poking her index fingers together. Kiba didn't say anything, due to him being curled up and sleeping next to his teammates with Akamaru on top of him.

"It is nice to see you all again." He then let his eyes drift two the two sleeping on the floor. "How long have you been here?" He asked looking back to Shino. "We got hear a quite recently, only about thirty minutes. Kiba insisted on finding some lunch before we went up to our rooms.' He said gesturing to the food on the table. "What about you Naruto? When did your team arrive?"

Naruto looked over at the food on the table and could feel his stomach grumble a little bit. "I'd say about ten minutes. If you'd excuse me, I think I'll get some-Ach!" His left shoulder suddenly flared in pain and he gripped it with his right hand. "N-Naruto! A-are you alright?" Hinata asked, practically jumping from her seat to help him.

"Yes I'm fine, I just got my shoulder injured from a Kiri-nin" He lied, Shino raised an eyebrow at this due to his insects telling him of the lie, but he let it go. "Thank you for asking, Hinata." He said, putting his right hand on her shoulder briefly before turning to were they were serving food. He didn't notice Hinata fall or the yelp from Akamaru and Kiba when she feinted on them.

He did however notice the killer intent from one of the sand turned his head slightly and saw Kankuro staring at him with bloody murder written on his face, likely wanting to finish their earlier fight. Gaara also looked at him, but his stoic face showed no emotion indicating any want to fight him. Their third teammate, Temari, seemed to be to busy adjusting her fan to notice him.

After a few days with nothing eventful happening other then two kunoichi getting into a shouting match over Sasuke, the Genin were called down to a large room on the ground floor. They were all told to line up in rows before a large statue. Naruto could finally see all the Genin that passed, there were three other leaf ninja and another sound team, the one that Naruto and his teammates fought off. One of them had his arms in a sling.

The Sandaime Hokage was also there, along with several Jonin. He gave a speech about the true meaning behind the Chunin exams. After he had finished, a sickly looking Jonin spoke up "Um*cough* Hokage-sama, I think*cough* It's time for the*Cough* preliminaries." He said, walking in front of th Genin. "Very well, go on then Hayate-san." The Hokage spoke.

Some of the Genin spoke up asking what the preliminaries were for, to which he replied, "The *cough* preliminaries are necessary due to the*cough* large number of *cough* Genin we have this year. Now, *cough* I am Hayate gekko *cough*, I shall be the proctor for the final *cough* test and these *cough* preliminaries."

After his introduction he began to tell the rules of the preliminaries and asked if anyone would forfeit at that time. A leaf-nin called 'Kabuto' raised his hand shamelessly and left the room,drawing the eyes of most the ninja in the room. Hayate then gestured to a screen that appeared from behind a large wall panel.

The first few fights weren't all that interesting, Shikamaru beat Kin in a game of strategy and Sasuke's opponent Zaku forfeited before the match when he saw who he was facing. Then it was Naruto's turn. His name along with Kankuro's appeared on the board. "Hell yea!" Kankuro shouted while jumping from the railing, earning a disgruntled look from Gaara. "Interesting." was all Naruto said as he chose the more leisurely stairs to get down to the floor.

Ounce Naruto stood across from Kankuro, the proctor gave them the signal to fight before jumping back. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then Naruto spoke up, breaking the silence. "Perhaps you'd feel more comfortable if you fought with your puppet outside of that bundle, Kankuro." As he said this, he unrolled his left sleeve a bit.

"Grr...Damn you!" Kankuro shouted, ripping off the bandages and letting his puppets disguise fall off. Naruto smirked, not that anybody saw it. "Ah. so I was right." Kankuro dead-panned before shouting back, "You mean that was just a guess!" Naruto eye-smiled before just before lifting his mask up a bit, biting his thumb and wiping it across a seal etched into his left arm's armor.

"Kaibutsu!**(3)**" He shouted as his newest puppet made his appearance. The Puppet looked very similar to his first puppet Enjin, due to him made from parts of him as well as new parts. He wore a tattered poncho with a hole in the middle of it and it's head was wrapped in bandages. One of his arms had a much larger forearm and hand then the other, while the part that connected his elbow to the shoulder looked exactly like the other.

They both seemed to have several matching compartments on the forearms even though they held a clear distinction in size. Four large spider-like legs shot out from his back, the second half of them being large curved seven foot blades. He stood on them in a way that if they weren't there, he'd look like a floating torso. Aside from the limbs shooting out of his back, he had no legs.

Kankuro was actually a tad bit frightened by this puppet, as well as several Genin standing on the balcony, including his two teammates. He tried his best hide it though as he readied his chakra strings, poised and ready to attack. He was not prepared how ever for what happened next, he heard a feint clicking sound as the puppet Kaibutsu turned it's large left arm into a senbon launcher.

Another noise was heard as a large blade shot out from it's right arm. Kankuro barely had time to move as senbon started to fly at him. He made a dash behind a rock to avoid getting hit. As he was just about to get his own puppet to attack, he heard a clicking sound much like that of an insect. He performed a kawarimi just as the rock he had hid behind split in two from the puppets sword.

Naruto smirked as he saw how it had become a game of cat and mouse, he decided to taunt his opponent. "Kankuro, I thought you were a fellow puppet master? You disappoint me." He made his puppet walk over to another boulder and had it slice it in half with it's sword again. No dice. On the other side of the room, Kankuro readied his puppet for an offensive attack on Kaibutsu.

'If I can get rid of that thing the I'll have no problem getting to Naruto...' He then pulled his puppet up and shouted a battle-cry as it flew to Kaibutsu. "Crow! Show him what you made of!" "Gladly" Naruto said as he turned his Puppet around and an cannonball shot out though the hole in it's chest, tearing crow to pieces. "No!" Kankuro shouted, stumbling out of his hiding space. He was met with a blade not two inches from his face.

"I'd suggest you forfeit, I'd rather not have them need to mop your brain off the floor." Naruto stated slowly walking over to were Kankuro and his puppet were. Kankuro, fearing for his life, raised his hand and forfeited. This earned a disapproving look from his brother. "*cough* The winner is Naruto*cough*" The proctor said.

Naruto proceeded to re-seal his puppet and walked back up to join his teammates. The only other matches that held interest was Gaara's, who almost killed Lee, And the sound kunoichi Hebiko, who poisoned Kiba with her snakes. Kiba and Lee were currently in the emergency room, Naruto hoped that they would be alright.

With the constant pain on his left shoulder, he almost missed who he'd be facing in the last, Gaara. He'd need some heavy-duty training to beat him if what he saw with Lee's fight is an indicator. The very state That Lee was in after the fight made him shiver. 'I will never let the fight go that far.' He thought as he and his team walked out of the tower back home.

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**That night, Naruto's room.

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Naruto stood knee deep in water. When he looked around, he could easily see that he was in a sewer, but he had no recollection of ever being here. "Were am I..." He muttered, his voice seeming to echo across the halls. He could then almost feel something call out to him, deep within the darkness in front of him.

He, without thinking, began to move forward. As he trekked onward though the dark and murky water, he kept hearing a seductive voice calling out to him. "Come with us Naruto." It sometimes said. Along with that, he sometimes heard a deep horific cackle. He tried his best to ignore them, and as he began to see a feint red glow, the voices stopped. Almost as if they dared not go near whatever lay in the room before him.

As soon as he made on final turn, he came face to face with a gigantic cage with a slit of paper with the Kanji 'seal' placed instead of a lock. **"NARUTO. YOU'VE FINALLY COME."** something from behind the cage said, it's voice deep and empowering. "Kyubi..." Naruto muttered. Then, A large pair of eyes shot open, they were of a deep crimson and held slitted pupils in the center.

"**AH. SO YOU'VE HEARD OF ME**." It said, the eyes focusing on Naruto. "**THAT SAVES ME SOME TIME EXPLAING. NARUTO, DO YOU RENEMBER IN THE FOREST, WHEN THAT WOMEN BIT YOU?**" He asked. Naruto cringed a bit at the memory and nodded. The giant demon then went on.

"**THAT WOMAN WAS A SERVANT OF ORICHUMARU, THE SNAKE SANIN. WHAT SHE DID WAS PLACE A SURSE SEAL ON YOU. FOR WHAT I DO NOT KNOW. I OFFER YOU HELP NARUTO, IN EXCHANGE FOR LETTING ME SPEAK THOUGH YOU THOUGHTS, I WILL PREVENT THE SEAL FROM INFLUENCING YOU**." Naruto looked a bit skeptical at this, and voiced his concern.

"Why would I even let that happen? You are a demon." "**DO YOU REALLY WANT TO FEEL PAIN FROM THAT MARK TWENTY-FOUR SEVEN? DO YOU REALLY WANT TO BECOME A PAWN OF ORICHUMARU? IF YOU MY MIND INTO YOURS, I CAN HELP STOP THE PAIN, AND I CAN TEACH YOU TO CONTROL THE SEAL**." The Kyubi countered.

Naruto stood still for a moment, contemplating weather or not he should accept. In the end, he went with the devil. "Alright, I accept." After he said that, the great demon smiled."**GOOD**" it said. Naruto then started to feel himself waken.

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**Chapter end.**

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**(1)**

**Kuchiyose no Jutsu= sumoning technique**

**Hitokugutsu no jutsu: Awatesaseru no ken= Humon puppet art: flury of swords**

**Sen'eijashu= Hidden snake hands**

**Katon: Gōkakyu no Jutsu= Fire style: Great frieball technique  
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**(2) **

**Hebiko= means snake child**

**(3) **

**Kaibutsu= means monster, or monstrosity.**

**(A/N)**

**I hope youv'e enjoyed that exiting chapter of the strings that bind us, I hope to be flooded with reveiws from all of you! Also, now that it's chistmas break, I'll be atemting to break out several new chapters very soon. Until then, Adios!(am not spanish speaker)**_~Malsyn_


	8. The Perverted sensei

**Hello My friends! Since it's Christmas time, I've decided to give you your gift for being such good people as you've all continued to read my story! I really hope you enjoy this one, I've tried to put as much effort as I could to make it as good as possible for you all! Enjoy! Please, read and review.

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**Disclaimer: I don't own 'Naruto'.  
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**The strings that bind us.  
Chapter 8: The Perverted sensei.**

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**A week before the Chunin exams, Otogakure**

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Otogakure, The village hidden in sound. This is likely the most hidden of all the ninja villages, if anything it's due to how the village is set up. In five places, about three miles apart each, there are entrances which lead underground. Each of them has two sound Chunin guarding them. All of them obscured by the sounding environment. Down below is the most interesting part.

Down the stairs of these little holes is a door, beyond that is the village hidden in sound. The village looks to be inside of a vast cave, the roof of which is looked to be almost a mile in the air and reinforced by metal girders. Torches and eery looking lamps placed on metal poles lit the vilage in an odd light. The people of the village looked to be very pale, likely due to seeing little to no sunlight.

In the heart of the cavern is a large tower which almost touched the ceiling of the cave. It had had the kanji for sound at at the very top. The tower itself looked to have been made from a dark and shiny marble. Inside we find the sound vilage's Hebikage, Orochimaru, sitting in a golden throne. In front of him keeled a girl who looked much like the man.

"Father, you've summoned me?" she spoke, looking up at him with her red eyes. Orochimaru smirked, his eyes were covered by a headband with their village's symbol on it. "Yes, my lovely daughter. I need you and your team to gather supplies. You'll be heading to Konoha's chunin exam's tomorrow."

His daughter, Hebiko, smiled at that. She and her father knew of Suna's upcoming attack on Konoha. In fact, they would even be aiding in the fight. "Hebiko." He spoke, getting his daughter's attention. "I also have another mission while your there. There is a boy I need, The container of the Kyubi. I need him for us to complete our goals." He took a pause for breath before continuing.

"Use any means necessary to draw him to our village. Fight him, capture him, seduce him for all I care. Just find a way to bring him here. Do you remember the sealing technique I taught you?" He asked, she nodded in response. "Good, use the cursed seal of heaven to draw him in. With that seal placed on him, he'll feel the need to seek us out for more power."

Hebiko got up from the floor and made way for the exit. Behind her she could hear her father call, "Good luck." She smirked at that, and went to find her two teammates and tell them of how they were chosen for the Chunin exams. She was sure that they'd be thrilled.

It didn't take her long. She could see them training. The male one seamed to be only speaking while his hands were held in a ram seal, while his female opponent was playing an eery looking violin. She waved and called them over. when they heard her, they both picked up their cloaks and ran over to her. Training was one of the only times that they didn't don them. They always wore them in battle and on missions.

The female one had her head band around her neck. Her hair was a deep crimson color and was kept short and spiked up. She was wearing a gray baggy shirt over a long sleeved fishnet shirt. She also wore a set of black basic ninja pants and a pair of combat boots. Her eyes seemed to be a light violet. The violin was a dark oak that had intricate leaves carved all over it.

The male one had a set of deep dark blue eyes with long steel colored hair kept in a ponytail. His outfit consisted of a baggy long sleeved blue shirt and a pair of gray ninja pants. He also, had on a pair combat boots. Once they reached their third teammate, he spoke up "Hebiko, what's going on?" his voice seemed to be kept in a light soothing tone, almost like he was singing.

Hebiko smiled, "Ibuta, Naikko, Orochimaru-sama has requested us to go go Konoha's Chunin exams." Both Ibuta and Naikko smirked at that. The male teammate, Ibuta, spoke again. "Won't that be fun." His voice was still light and soothing, yet it seemed to hold a hint of malice in it.  
"Those Konoha freaks won't know what hit them." Naikko spoke, her voice in a smooth dark tone.

They then left from the lantern-lit training ground to prepare for their trip. All of them knowing what their role will be in the upcoming invasion.

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**The day after the end of the second test. Konoha hot springs.**

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Naruto felt that before he'd start on training with the Kyubi on his newly obtained cursed seal, that he should go for a dip in the hot springs. He figured it would be a nice little treat for him to celebrate making it to the third part of the exams. He walked in wearing a white towel around his waist.

Seeing how he wasn't able to remove his extra arms without a great deal of pain, he had paid to rent a private he removed his towel, he lowered himself into the bath, and felt the soothing water touch what little of his natural human skin that he had left. "Ahhhh...." He mumbled, letting himself sink deeper into the bath. "**DO YOU HEAR SOMETHING?**" the Kyubi asked, interrupting his bath.

But despite his bath being interrupted, he listened harder anyway. He began to hear some giggling from the public mens bath. He tried to ignore it, but it just kept getting louder, stopping him from having any enjoyment in his soak. Muttering a bit, he climbed out of the bath and put his towel back on. To keep from embarrassing himself, he put it in a double knot.

He then made his way over to the public mens bath to see were all the noise was coming from. What he saw slightly disturbed him. It looked to be a fifty-or-so year old man in red ninja garb peeking into the female bath. "What do you think you doing?" Naruto asked. The man turned his head slightly before turn back and continuing to giggle. His face had looked a bit disgruntled.

"Did you hear me?" Naruto asked. The old man just ignored him and continued to giggle. "**PERHAPS YOU SHOULD DRAW ATTENTION TO HIS ACTIONS." **Kyubi suggested. 'Are you sure that would be wise?' Naruto asked. "**GO AHEAD, IT WILL AT THE VERY LEAST BE AMUSING.**" Kyubi chuckled a bit as he said that.

Naruto grumbled a bit before he yelled out, "Pervert!" He then quickly jumped into the water, to avoid the screaming woman that ran out of the bath to beat the proclaimed pervert. Naruto watched in mild amusement at the old man getting beat to a pulp. After a few minutes, the girls left and Naruto emerged from the water. He walked over to were the man lay and nudged him a bit with his foot.

To his shock, the man burst into smoke and something sharp pressed up against his neck. "Hey kid, what was that for? I didn't do anything to you did I?" The man asked, pressing his weapon against Naruto's neck a bit harder. "I don't believe so, but what you were doing invaded those woman's privacy." The old ninja held back a shudder at the boy's dead metallic voice.

'I like this kid, he's got guts.' the man thought. He then pushed the blond forward and did a long intro basically reveling himself to be the toad sage, Jiraya. Naruto blinked a bit, then proceeded to call him a pervert. To which Jiraya countered, "I'm not a pervert, I'm a supper pervert!" Naruto stared at him for a moment, them made a move to leave.

Jiraya then noticed his extra arms and he could recognize him instantly, 'Naruto!' his mind shouted. "Oye! I don't believe I got your name!" He said, pulling Naruto by his right arm back. "Er, Naruto." He replied a bit confused as to why the man has taken a sudden interest in him. "Naruto, how would you like to be my apprentice?" Jiraya pleaded.

"Um, no, I don't think so." Naruto muttered and made another attempt to get away, to which Jiraya simply pulled him back again. "Come on! I can teach you lot's of cool jutsu's and stuff, like this!" He then held up his left hand, the one that wasn't holding Naruto, and a blue sphere appeared in his hand.

"That it?" Naruto asked, raising an eyebrow. Jiraya smirked and then slammed the sphere into a wall, the girls bath's wall. The wall proceed to basically explode, revealing many angry naked woman. Naruto jumped back in time to avoid getting clobbered by woman, Jiraya wasn't. A few minutes later Naruto returned, Kyubi laughing in his head at the toad sages condition.

"Alright, I'll be your apprentice." As soon as Naruto said that, Jiraya jumped to his feat. "Excellent, follow me!" After Naruto gathered up his cloths, he followed Jiraya to a stream near the bathhouses. He then told Naruto about the jutsu he'd just used and began to tell him of what he'd need to do in order to complete it.

Jiraya had boughten a bunch of water balloons and gave them to Naruto to practice the first part of the jutsu on. He then told him to me him at the gates at seven tomorrow to go on a small two week training trip. At home, Naruto packed up his things with his two lower arms while trying to make the balloon burst in his right. After several unsuccessful attempts, it suddenly snapped in his head.

He stopped packing for a moment and held out his hand and proceed to spin the water in the balloon using one of his others. The balloon burst. Naruto smirked at that. He then attempted something a bit different, he pulled out another balloon and held it in his right hand. He then attempted to move the water by emitting chakra from his fingertips and the balloon burst. "**NICE JOB KIT**" Kyubi said.

Over the next few weeks leading up to the third part of the Chunin exams, Naruto trained with Jiraya to master the Rasengan. He easily completed the second and third stages in under a week, and proceeded to master it to the point were he could complete it single-handedly. In his spare time, and when Jiraya wasn't watching, he also worked with Kyubi to control his cursed seal.

Almost a week before it was time to head back to Konoha for Naruto to finish taking the exams, Jiraya decided to give Naruto a gift for completing the Rasengan so fast. "Naruto, how would you like to be able to summon creatures to help you in battle?" Jiraya asked his student as the relaxed near a stream.

"Summon? But Jiraya-sensei, I'm a puppet-master." Naruto said, a bit confused. Jiraya frowned a bit at that. "What? Are you really turning down the grand chance to summon great toads to help you fight in battle?" Jiraya paused for a moment, as if he wanted Naruto to answer, then he spoke again. "Naruto, even though you can control puppets, having an sentient creature with you would help greatly. Puppets can't think Naruto, you need to control them in order for them to work."

Naruto sat silent for a moment. He couldn't deny his master's logic. Puppet's weren't sentient, they were mindless. You needed to devote attention to controlling them in order for them to work properly. While Naruto was very good at this, it would greatly help if he had someone who could think for itself.

"Alright, what do you need me to do Jiraya-sensei." Naruto asked. Jiraya smirked and summoned up a toad. "Kuchiyose no Jutsu!" as he said that, he slammed his hand on the ground and symbols seamed to appear underneath it. less then a second later, a large told holding a large scroll appeared. He placed it on the ground before Jiraya and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Jiraya unrolled the scroll and scooted across the ground to Naruto. "Sign your name on there in blood along with the fingerprints of your right hand." After that, Naruto pulled out a Kunai and brought it across his arm, he let the blood drip to his fingers before signing his name and placing his fingerprints on the scroll.

Jiraya saw that as a slightly unorthodox method seeing as how he dripped his blood all over the scroll. But it would work anyway. Naruto was about to roll the scroll back up and hand it to Jiraya, but then a poorly written name caught his attention. " Minato...Namikaze..." Naruto muttered. He felt a ping of anger as he said the name, but he shoved it aside.

Making sure that Jiraya didn't hear him, he rolled the scroll back up and handed it to Jiraya. After Jiraya summoned the toad to take the scroll back, he told Naruto to try and bring forth a toad. Using what little blood that was still left from when he signed his name, he made the necessary seals and slammed his hand on the ground. "**Kuchiyose no Jutsu!**"

What cam forth was a toad slightly bigger then Jiraya. "Very good Naruto." Jiraya complemented, silently cursing that he was able to summon such a large toad his first try when it took him six to get something half that size. "Did you need something Jiraya-sama?" the toad asked. "It wasn't me who summoned you, it was my newest apprentice Naruto."

The toad bowed a small bit while speaking, "It is a pleasure to meet you, Naruto-san." After that the toad vanished in a puff of smoke. Jiraya gave Naruto some pointers about summoning before they went to bed. It was time for Naruto to return to Konoha.

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**Konoha Arena, Final day of the Chunin exams.

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Orochimaru carefully walked up the steps to the Kage box, he was guided by two sound Jonin. Seeing how most of his Genin from sound made it to the final stage of the exams, his old sensei had asked him to join him in the Kage box. Orochimaru was quite surprised by that, but he accepted none the less. After all, it made his plans a tad bit easier.

"It's nice to see that you've decided to come." spoke the voice that he knew all to well. "Do you really think I wouldn't come to see, in a manner of speaking, how far my Genin have come in their training?" As he said that, he let one of his Jonin guide him to the empty seat. When he sat down, he could smell sand on his left.

"Kazekage-sama? Are you also here?" He asked, hoping that he'd be there for him to complete his plan. He heard a grunt coming from his left, he took that as a yes and decided to try his best to listen to the matches that would be starting soon. Due to his lack of sight, he'd try and imagine how the ninja were fighting and who was winning. 'Let us sit here as friends for one last time, sensei...'

Down in the arena, the Genin were all lining up. As their sickly proctor waited for the last one, the Uchina, to arrive, Naruto decided to look over the others that made it. His other teammate, Shikamaru, was there along with Neji, all members of team Hebi, Gaara and Temari from Suna, and Dosu. He had also paid attention to when they gave out who would fight who.

He would go against Gaara, Shikamaru would be fighting Gaara's sister. Sasuke would be up against Hebiko, Naruto prayed that he'd not show up so that he wouldn't get killed by her. Neji will be fighting Ibuta, and Naikko would fight Dosu, another member of sound. Hayate looked at a watch before speaking. "*cough* If Sasuke doesn't get here in *cough* five minutes. He'll be *cough* disqualified."

Time seemed to move much slower after that, both he and Shikamaru wondering were he was at. The minutes ticked by slowly, yet there was still no sign of the Uchina. In the end, Sasuke was declared as having forfeited. Hebiko scowled at that while Naruto sent a private prayer in thanks. Kakashi, being the type of ninja he was, had hoped to build suspense and appear just before Sasuke was disqualified.

Unfortunately, Kakashi was never good with time. "Dammit! All that training was for nothing! This is all your fault sensei!" Sasuke fumed as the walked up a set of stairs to find seats to watch the matches. "Troublesome" Shikamaru muttered. Hayate called for their attention again. He told them of what they needed to do to win, and what little rules there were. He then called out the first match.

"Neji and Ibuta *cough* will be *cough* fighting for the first *cough* match. Everyone else *cough*, please wait *cough* up on the balc-*cough*-ony for the your *cough* match to be called." He then motioned them to the stairs and waved them off. Ounce the other ninja were in place, he waited for the two fighters to give their ready, and began the fight.

Neji and Ibuta's match was very interesting, and very short. Neji began by taunting his opponent and proceeded to try and use his gentle fist technique on him. Ibuta simply held his hands in a ram seal and began speaking, the same thing he did in the preliminaries. While he did that, Neji seemed to double over in pain, clutching his ears.

Hayate called the match seeing as how Neji wouldn't continue the fight. When a med team came to get him and placed him on a stretcher, he appeared to be bleeding from his ears as well as being knocked out by whatever jutsu the man used. Once Neji was gone, Ibuta vanished in a swirl of leaves, and reappeared on the balcony next to his teammates in swirl of wind that held a low whistling sound.

Naruto tried to to listen in on whatever they were saying, Ibuta sounded if he was almost singing. Hayate interrupted his musing by calling down the Genin for the next match, Shikamaru and Temari. In all honesty, that match held little of his attention as his friend was using his strategic skills to try and win the match, which was taking a very long time. Instead, Naruto took this time to observe his opponents.

At first glance Gaara seemed to have been doing nothing, but when he looked harder he could see how Gaara had sand circling around him in a tight orbit. 'Some sort of defense I'll bet, Kaibutsu and those toads likely won't be of any use when fighting him. Perhaps I should use the jutsu Jiraya-sensei taught me.' He mussed to himself. He then looked over at Dosu.

The most significant thing that he could see was his arm. Naruto believed that he called it his 'Melody arm'. 'Not much there, he likely has some other weapons hidden somewhere but if I were to handle a guess, I'd say that his arm is his most dangerous one. Much like my own...' He began to drift off and focused on his previous mission.

Naruto already knew enough about Hebiko to last him a lifetime, so he focused on the other two. Ibuta used some sort of sound-based jutsu to knock out Neji. Due to his use of just one seal, and his natural voice, it was likely to be some sort of bloodline based jutsu. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to find out anything about the third team-member. She, like her male teammate, wore her hooded cloak, obscuring any facial details that she had.

He decided to put her in the 'to be weary of' club. After assessing as much information he could, he turned back an continued to watch his friend's fight. It seemed that Shikamaru was hiding at the moment, likely waiting for it to be more in his favor. So the fight, if you could call it that, went on for a few more hours until he finally made his move.

He used a brilliant show of strategic brilliance to back Temari unto a corner, using his Kage Mane and a few offensive med-jutsus to force her to surrender. He smirked a bit, seeing how he had clearly won the fight. After Hayate called the fight in Shikamaru's favor, He called the people down for the next match, Dosu and Naikko.

Gaara seemed to twitch a bit, likely a bit irritated that he wouldn't get to fight just yet. Naruto noticed this and figured that he had at least a small hint of blood-lust. He then turned back to watch the fight between the two sound-nin. Thankfully, it was not nearly as long as his teammates'.

It seemed that it was a good guess that all that Dosu had to his name was his melody arm. He simply ran strait forward with it out in front of him, but he was suddenly stopped about half way there as his opponent bit her thumb and slammed it to the ground. It seemed that Dosu had his legs by what looked to be bony arms. When Naruto looked closer, he could see that they were in fact arms of bone.

To the audiences horror and fascination, a dead looking creature emerged from the ground behind Dosu. He looked completely frightened at this turn of events. Using all his might, he jumped out of the creatures grip somewhere on the other side of the arena. The thing that had been holding then fully emerged from the ground, looking as dead and rotting as it's brother.

Naikko was apparently playing a small violin, from where she pulled it Naruto had no idea. It was likely sealed somewhere inside her cloak. The two creatures that seamed to have summoned were slowly walking over to where Dosu stood. As they walked forward, he pulled something from his back with his melody arm. It seemed to be an odd looking-mace.

The mace looked very similar to his melody arm, it even had several holes placed at the top part of it. When he waved it around, the ground seemed to crack. Dosu spoke something to his opponent, likely explaining his new weapon. Naikko smirked a small bit, and began playing her violin a bit faster, in a sort of upbeat song.

When she did that, her summons began to run towards Dosu. He swung his mace around in attempt to fend them off. When they had almost reached him, they suddenly stopped. Then Naikko began playing in a softer tone, and the creatures mouths opened slightly. As soon as they did that, Dosu dropped his mace and grabbed his ears.

After a minute of this, he raised his hand in forfeit. Hayate then called the match in Naikko's favor. She smiled and unsummoned her creatures and sealed up her weapon. Then she walked over to her fellow sound ninja and helped him back up. After they were back on the balcony, Hayate called then participants of the last match down, himself, and Gaara.

Gaara seemed to for a brief second, hold a face that told of his insanity. He then vanished and reappeared in a swirl of wind down in the arena, looking as impassive as he did during the other fights. Naruto had decided to try his best and keep his extra arms a secret, so he left them inside his coat as he jumped down into the arena.

Once he was standing ten feet from Gaara, Hayate started the match, and jumped back. They stood still for a moment, just watching each-other. Neither of them seemed to want to be the first to move. "**WHAT ARE YOU WAITNG FOR? FIGHT!**" Kyubi screamed. Naruto ignored him for the moment and carefully analyzed the bits of sand that swirled around Gaara.

He waited until they started to move faster, then Naruto made his move. He suddenly put his hands together in a cross shaped seal and formed five shadow clones. The clones rushed at Gaara, taking him slightly by surprise. They carefully dodged then entourage of sand that flew around them.

While the clones were drawing Gaara's attention, Naruto began to form a Rasengan in his right hand. After it reached a specific size, he lunged at Gaara. He used his clones to take the hits as sand came rushing at him. Then he slammed his Rasengan at Gaara, were it was blocked by some sort of sand shield. Naruto simply pushed harder, tearing the shield to pieces.

"**USE THE CURSED SEAL!**" Kyubi shouted, and Naruto obliged. He could fell the black marks covering his body and he could hear gasps coming from the crowd, the ones who knew of Orochimaru's Cursed seal techniques. With the sudden boost of power, he plunged right though the shield, and into Gaara's chest.

Naruto pulled his hand away before the sand could crush it. He then backed up a bit and surveyed the damage. It seemed that Gaara had something else protecting besides the sand shield, for his technique didn't do nearly the amount of damage it should've done. Gaara was only bleeding a little bit, yet he looked somewhat frightened.

Just as he heard a crashing sound from far off, Gaara screamed. As he screamed, sand swirled around him for a moment before he fell on the ground. His two siblings jumped down and caried him off before Naruto could do anything else. He then heard fighting from all around him and looked around. 'What the...' What he saw were various sound and sand Jonin attacking leaf ninja.

What really caught him by surprise was the odd purplish barrier that had formed just above the Kage box. Before he could make any move for it, Kakashi jumped down. "Naruto! Go after Gaara! This is your first A-ranked mission, GO!" He shouted, Naruto simply nodded a bit dumbly before jumping off after the sand siblings.

Up inside the purple barrier, things were a bit interesting. "I should've known that you didn't change at all Orochimaru, and Kazekage-sama! We had a treaty between our two people, why would you do this!" The Hokage yelled, as he made silently began to prepare a few jutsu to take them down.

Orochimaru smirked, but said nothing. He then proceeded to stab the Kazekage in the back, severing his spine and killing him instantly. Sarutobi let his mouth hang open a bit in shock "What have you done Orochimaru?" Orochimaru began to chuckle , and it slowly became a crazed laugh.

"Why Sarutobi-sensei, I have changed. If I was still my older self, I'd have simply killed my own students for this next technique." He then performed an earth jutsu that sucked the Kazekage's body down into the ground, then proceed to fly though several more seals. "**Kuchiyose: Edo Tensei!(1)**" He yelled, and coffins began to fly up though portals that had formed on the ground.

Sarutobi, seeing what the jutsu did immediately, stopped Orochimaru from completely bringing out a third casket. What little that did make it though had the Kanji for 'forth' written on it. The others read 'first' and 'seccond'. "Orochimaru...what have you done." the old Hokage said. Orochimaru's previous smirked grew into a full-blown smile.

"Many things, Sarutobi-sensei, many things." He spoke in a cool and calm voice. The Sandaime yelled back, "Don't you dare call me that Orochimaru!" Orochimaru ignored him. Sarutobi could see the purple barrier waver slightly before a sound Genin hopped by Orochimaru's side. He could see their similarities instantly. "You have a..a..."

"A daughter." Orochimaru finished, he smiled while he said that. "As much as I would've loved to have fought against you my old sensei, I'm afraid that with my eyes the way they are it would be a tad bit difficult." He took a pause before finishing, "Meet my lovely daughter, my future successor, Hebiko." The now identified Hebiko took a small bow a that.

"When did you..How..." Sarutobi stuttered, completely forgetting of how a fight would soon be fought between them. Orochimaru frowned. "Why sensei, I thought you knew. Well, When to people love each-other..." He drifted off when he heard his old sensei growl. "Don't play fun with me, Orochimaru!"

Orochimaru smiled, seeing how he finally gotten his sensei to anger. The perfect time to strike against a ninja. "Perhaps I shall tell you while your on your deathbed. Hibiko, complete the technique." His daughter smiled, and held her hands in in a dragon seal. when she did, to his surprise, the first two Hokages emerged. 'Oh no...' Sarutobi thought.

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**End Chapter **

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**(1)****Kuchiyose: Edo Tensei= Summoning: Impure World Resurrection**

******(A/N)**

******What an interesting turn of events. Orochimaru has a daughter? Oh, and the********return of the great and evil cliffhanger!****(********--Was to lazy to write more) I hope you all have an exelent chistmas or **hanukkah****** along with any other holidays that you might be celebrating this week! See you all next time! **_Malsyn_


	9. The Sleepless Jinchuriki

**Hey all, sorry for the long delay, I was enjoying the Holidays with my family and was having some trouble thinking of what to write. This chapter will be a bit shorter then what I've been pumping out lately but don't worry, I'll try to make the next one longer. Also, I've been running though some ideas for a new story and I'll be posting out the first Chapter sometime in the next few days. It's gonna be a neat Naruto fic that gives him technology powered ninjutsu. Keep an eye out for it. Please, read and review.

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**Disclaimer: No, I don't own 'Naruto'.  
**

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**The strings that bind us.  
Chapter 9: The Sleepless Jinchuriki**

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**Konoha, a few days after the invasion.

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Naruto sat in a large tree and thought over the events of the Chunin exams. He had just been approached by the members of the sound four, with an offer to join their leader, Orochimaru. In the past, the answer would have been clear. But now...

He looked over at what was ounce known as the greatest ninja village, Konoha. He tried his hardest to find anything good in the large village before him, anything that could help him make his decision. It wasn't looking good.

Over the many thoughts that ran though his mind, not many were good. He remembered the ramen stand were the owners always treated him like an actual person. His friends Sasuke and his brother Itachi. The old man... Naruto looked over at the Hokage monument and saw him. Likely the last time he'll ever see the old Hokage ever again.

Despite trying to find all the good in his home village, the bad things overwhelmed him. The daily beatings and insults of his earlier childhood. The hateful looks given to him every day. His...disability. Naruto looked down at his hands, with only one being real. He felt a surge of anger when he remembered that horrible day.

He got even more angry when he remembered why it had happened. That his own father condemned him to all that hatred given to him by his own neighbors. He pushed the thought away, not wanting to go though that painful transformation again. Throughout all of this, the Kyubi kept silent. Knowing how hard this was for his jailor.

Despite the reason for why he was locked away in the child's belly, he did not hate the kid. In fact, the demon thought of him like a son that he would never have had. He knew how much pain it had caused his surrogate son just by him residing as a prisoner inside of the seal placed on Naruto. He kept quiet. Not sure of what he should do himself.

After almost thirty minutes of sitting there, trying to decide what would be best, he finally came up with an answer. He called over to the four bored sound shinobi, and gave his answer.

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**Days before, just outside of Konoha.

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Naruto rushed though the trees as fast as he could, he needed to stop Gaara, from whatever he was doing. He couldn't help but what was happening with the Hokage, when that odd barrier went up, all hell had broken lose. When he dashed over the rooftops to catch up to the red-headed sand ninja, he could easily see the large snakes crashing into the wall, along with a great many sand and sound ninja.  
Only one word could describe what was happening out there. War. A full out shinobi war between sand and sound against leaf. On his way,he was forced to down several ninja that tried to block him from reaching his target. Surprisingly, it was quite easy. By the time he reached the forest, he had already killed at least five ninja. They seemed to have been no match to his puppet skills.

As he followed a trail of sand after the three siblings, he could here people calling out to him. "Naruto!" one that sounded like Sasuke. Turning his head only confirmed that, he also seemed to have Shino with him. "What are you two doing here?" He asked, yet not stopping his run though the trees.

"Kakashi-sensei told us to come with you, something about stopping that Gaara kid. Plus, it's not like I'm gonna miss the opportunity to fight." Sasuke replied, while muttering about a stupid lazy sensei. "Then be on guard, were almost caught up." Naruto said, just as he jumped from another branch. Shino raised his eyebrow slightly. "I figured it would've taken longer to reach them. Something must be slowing them down."

Naruto narrowed his eyes, and increased his pace, the other two did the same. He recalled the way Gaara had looked after he injured him, as if he had never been hurt in his entire life. He thought harder at the way he reacted, trying to see if there was something he had missed. There was. He gasped slightly when he remembered how his eyes had looked. They had looked...demonic.

He instantly recalled what his prisoner had called him. "Jinchuriki..." He mumbled. Inside his head, Kyubi came to the same conclusion. Even more so, he knew who the demon was. "**SHUKAKU.**" He uttered. Naruto raised an eyebrow. 'What was that?' he asked.

"**THE DEMON THAT HE HOSTS, HIS NAME IS SHUKAKU. I SHOULD'VE SEEN THIS SOONER. YOU MUST HURRY! EVEN THOUGH THIS PARTICULAR DEMON IS WEAKER THE I, IT IS MUCH MORE INSANE.**" The demon replied. Naruto pushed more chakra into his wooden legs, if that's even possible, and ran faster. The other two now found it even harder to keep up with the blond.

Not even ten minutes later, and the could see the three ninja as they drew closer. "Dammit!,Temari, you take Gaara, I'll handle these punks." he said, handing his little brother to his sister. The three leaf ninja stopped wen they saw Kankuro turning around to face him. Shino spotted the female ninja jumping away with their target. "Naruto, Shikamaru. You you go on ahead. I Can give you some time."

The other two nodded their heads and went after their target. Kankuro attempted to stop them with his puppet, but Shino drew his attention with a kunai the flew by his head. "Your fight is with me." he spoke calmly, before jumping at the older ninja. Kankuro easily dodged his punch and jumped back, smiling all the way.

Farther into the forest, Temari heard Gaara stir. "Te..Temari?" He muttered, slowly opening his eyes, and feeling his memories come back. He heard a feint whistling noise, and pushed put of his sister's arms,knocking her back. A flurry of Kunai flew right thought the air that they had just occupied. "Gaara, Go on ahead, I'll take these guys on, go!" she shouted, while bringing out her fan.

Gaara, still a bit confused from that earlier attack, nodded dumbly and moved on ahead, starting his transformation. "Sasuke! I need you to take her on!" Naruto shouted, leaving Kiba's side. Temari didn't notice Naruto slip by her and focused on the leaf-nin in front of her. Sasuke grinned a bit, seeing that he'd actually get to fight.

With Sasuke behind him, Naruto ran as fast as he could after the the sand Jinchuriki. He easily followed a trail of destruction as the red-head made his way. By the time Naruto reached Gaara, he was already half transformed. When heard the blond show up, he turned to face the threat, and Naruto saw just how much had changed.

Gaara's entire left arm was covered in sand and a tail swang behind him. Part of his face was covered, with the eye on one side being his dull green, and the other being the same he had seen earlier. Naruto pulled out his other arms and wiped blond along his arm, making his puppet appear beside him.

"BLOOOOD!!!" Gaara cried out as he jump from the branch that he had been standing on. Naruto's eyes widened as Gaara knocked him to the ground. He was able to perform a quick replacement just before he was smashed. Gaara picked up the log that he had crushed and though it toward Naruto's hiding spot. 'Shit!' He screamed in his head as he dodged the pice of wood.

He made his puppet launch a flurry of senbon at Gaara, yet they just bounced of his now sand limbs. He was forced to dodge his own weapons as most of them shot right at him. Gaara swung his tail around and nearly crushed his puppet Kaibutsu. After which, his arm shot out to grab it. Naruto was able to replace his own puppet with a log before it was crushed.

Naruto resealed his Kaibutsu so he could focus completely on his opponent. "Give me you BLOOD!!" Gaara screamed as lunged at Naruto. He narrowly got out of the way before Gaara crushed him. Naruto tried to concentrate as he performed a special jutsu unique to those that have multiple limbs. He ran though a series of seals using both sets of hands before he cried out, "**Katon: Daikatoppa!**(1)"

As he said that, he breathed in and a flame appeared between the tips of his upper hand's index fingers. He then breathed out and the air caught fire creating a very large fireball, even larger the the Uchina's techniques. Gaara shielded himself from the fire using his left arm and his tail. After five seconds, the fireball dispersed and much of the surrounding forest was left aflame. A large growl caught Naruto's attention.

He looked over at Gaara and saw his sand limbs glistening due them now being glass formed from the intense heat. The limbs fell off and shattered on the ground, mixing in with the new sand forming around Gaara. More and more sand formed around Gaara, destroying much of the surrounding forest. By the time it had finished, Gaara had groan to gargantuan size.

"DIE!!!" Gaara screamed, his voice filled with rage, as he swiped at the ground. Naruto leapt far away from the doomed tree before a large hand reduced it and many of its brothers to splinters. He then forced his fake legs to move quickly as sand covered the area. Naruto performed the same fire technique as he did earlier turned much of Gaara's backside into glass. He screamed aloud and then Gaara appeared on the forehead of the giant sand construct. He grinned just before he put his hands in a ram seal. "**Tanuki Neiri no Jutsu.**" He muttered, yet was clearly heard by Naruto.

Gaara then slumped over and the eyes of the giant shukaku became more obvious. "**I'M FREEEE!!!!**" The demon screamed."**YOU MIGHT NEED MY HELP WITH THIS.**" Kyubi spoke as red chakra started to swim around Naruto. He let the newfound rage take him and forced his cursed seal to activate as well, making him much stronger then he would've been if he only used Kyubi's chakra.

Naruto heard the familiar popping sound of his fake arms transforming themselves from the demons chakra, and the black flame-like markings swam around his body. Shukaku felt this new power and looked down at his feet where Naruto crouched, reading for attack. The sand demon smirked at the first to challenge him after being awoken, and gasp as it shot right though his stomach, appearing on the other side of him in less then a second.

The sand tanuki had a hard time healing the massive hole and felt himself start to collapse. He sacrificed one of his own arm to stay standing and filled up the wound with his left arm's sand. He felt something land on his back and used his remaining right to try and grab his attacker. "**DIE YOU STUPID BUG!!**" He cried. Naruto simply jumped out of the way and began running up the giant demons' back.

When he saw his target in sight, he pulled back his upper right arm and launched it at Gaara's face. "**NOO!! I WAS JUST GETTING STARTED!!!!!**" The demon cried as it's sand body started to fall to pieces. Gaara woke up in a startled fashion and tried to bring the sand tanuki back together but was stopped as Naruto slammed right into his stomach, sending them both crashing toward the ground.

The purplish red chakra around Naruto along with the black markings both receded as he fell alongside Gaara to the ground. They landed in the forest about forty feet away from where the forest just became a desert. Naruto felt many of his ribs along with the bones in his right arm crack. He could here his limbs breaking as he landed on the ground.

He heard another thump land in front of him yet he just laid still. After several minutes of just resting there, letting the demon inside him heal whatever he could, he started to get up. Amazingly, his legs weren't to badly damaged from the fall. He winced at the throbing that echoed from his hand as he pulled himself to his fake feet.

Once he was on his feet, eh looked over and saw Gaara laying on the ground in front of him. He slowly walked over, careful not break any more of his ribs, to where Gaara lay. He stood in silence over the boy who kept his eyes on the sky far above him. "What are you waiting for?" Gaara mumbled.

Naruto tried to speak but saw how his mask had come off from when he fell. He settled with just raising his eyebrow in confusion. Gaara looked over and saw his confused look and tried to make his query clearer. "Are you not going to finish me? Will you not prove my existence by ending me?" Naruto shook his head and fished in his dirty coat for an extra mask before putting it on and speaking.

"I don't need to kill you to prove of your existence." He spoke, his words a bit crackled from the damaged mask he wore. "Why?" Gaara asked. "Why will you not prove my existence?" Naruto looked at the boy and tried to gather the words in his mind before speaking. "Because you already exist, all that you need for proof is the people that are dear to you, your...precious people."

Gaara looked back at the sky while muttering what Naruto had just said. "Precious people..." Naruto left the boy to his thoughts by making his way back home, to the place were so few he had called his precious people, Konoha. He didn't see Gaara's siblings appear to take him home, nor did he hear Gaara whisper to them, "I'm sorry."

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**Back in Konoha, atop the roof of the Hokage box.

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Things were not going well the Sandaime , while he was able to toss the two dead Hokages into the barrier, thus incinerating them, he found that fighting against Orochimaru and his daughter, even though Orochimaru was blind, to be a very difficult task. "Have you had enough sensei?" He spoke just as Sarutobi had to dodge from a large number of snakes.

He ignored his old student as he went though a series of hand-seals, he then though out a shuriken at the two sound nin while calling out, "**Shuriken Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!**" The shuriken he had thrown turned into a great many that not even Orochimaru was able to dodge completely. "Gah!" He cried out as a number of them landed on his form.

Orochimaru then pulled them out and cursed that fact that he wasn't able to perform a mud clone in time due to his lack of sight. He listened intently before running though a number of seals. "**Fūton: Daitoppa!**" Before the technique reached him, Sarutobi ran though three hand seals and yelled out, "**Doton: Doryūheki!**" He then spat out mud that became a thick wall just in time before the wind torrent destroyed him.

Orochimaru's daughter, Hebiko, made an attempt to get behind the Sandaime, but ended up getting knocked unconscious from a large bo staff that appeared in his hands. He smirked and turned his attention back to his old apprentice. Orochimaru frowned when he heard his daughter go down with hardly a fight. "I think she needs more training, Orochimaru." The Sandaime mocked.

Orochimaru answered by coughing out a snake that held his famed Kusanagi sword. He grabbed the weapon and the snake that held it disappeared back into his body. Sarutobi smiled, for it seemed that the battle was going better then he first thought, that was, he smiled until he was stabbed in the back by the same sword that Orochimaru just pulled out in front of him. He heard laughter from the man in front of him as his sword turned to mud.

He then proceeded to walk towards Sarutobi. "What were saying again sensei?" He asked as he took the sword from his daughter. She then disappeared in a plume of smoke. "She was...just.." He gasped, blood leaking from his mouth. "Just a simple shadow clone." He finished, as he tried to force the sword further in his old sensei's back. "The real Hebiko is helping out with the invasion."

The bo staff Hiruzen had been holding then transformed into a giant ape, who held onto the sword's blade, stopping the blade from going any further. He was not prepared for what happened next, as he felt his should being ripped out forcefully he whipped his head back Sarutobi to see that he was smiling. He looked down and saw a ghostly had reaching around from the hokage's stomach, gripping what seemed to be his own soul.

Everything started to blur out, and he used all his might to rip the sword out of his sensei, killing him. He felt his arms start to burn in pain and dropped the sword, "Fall back!" He yelled, just as the barrier came down and one of the people who had been maintaining it grab him and the sword, and jumped away from the now dead Hokage's body. Hiss invading forces began to retreat as per his order, and Konoha was left standing, if just barely.

The next day, nobody was celebrating their victory over the unexpected attack, for they were all mourning the Hokage's death. A great number of Konoha was there at the funeral, many of them mourning the loss of others who died defending Konoha. The only one who wasn't, was standing over it from afar, on top of the Hokage monument. Naruto looked up at the sky as the world itself started to weep at the great hero's death.

He sat there, long after the funeral had finished, well into the night. The only time he moved was when it was to go home to repair the damage to himself that he had made no attempt to fix the day before.

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**Days later, in a tree overlooking Konoha.**

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Naruto sat still, contemplating the fours offer to join them in the village of sound. And he made a decision that he likely would have never given before. "Alright, I'll go with you. I will serve Orochimaru."

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**Chapter end

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**(1)**

**Katon: Daikatoppa=fire release: Great breakthrough of fire(Note; this is much diferent from the technique that Orochimaru used in that this is a very large fireball.)**

**Tanuki Neiri no Jutsu= Feigning sleep technique**

**Shuriken Kage Bunshin no Jutsu= Shadow clone Shuriken technique**

**Fūton: Daitoppa= Wind relese: Great breakthough**

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****Doton: Doryūheki= Earth relese: Mud wall**

**(A/N)**

**I bet you didn't see that coming did you? Whatever could our blond friend be planing here? Find out next time in the exiting episode of dragon ball- er, I mean the next chapter. **_~Malsyn_


	10. The New Hokage

**Hey everybody!**(Simpsons reference) **I bring you more from chapters from my magnificent story, The strings that bind us! In this chap we get to meet the new Hokage, no it's not Tsunade. Plus, we get to see team Shikamaru off to bring Naruto back to Konoha. I really do hope you enjoy my work. Oh, and before I forget, I'm going to start on my new story today(YAY!!), keep an eye out. One more thing**(Jackie Chan reference)**, I will also be starting something I saw one of my favorite authors do, showing you the song I listened to while typing up the chapter! Enjoy. Please, read and review.**...Sandstorm by Da Rude.

**Disclaimer: Stop axeing**(Futurama reference)**! I don't own 'Naruto'! God...**

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**The strings that bind us.  
Chapter 10: The new Hokage**

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With Itachi, Hokage's office **

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Itachi was seen banging his head against his desk out of annoyance. Sure, being a Hokage was a great achievement, but there was one thing that came with the title that he really did not enjoy. "I...hate...PAPERWORK!!" As he yelled that, the room seemed to open up, revealing the mountains of paperwork lining the room, which seemed to be growing at an alarming rate.

He saw a Chunin walk in, in his hands were more of the dreaded papers. He groaned and let his head fall on the desk ounce again, landing on one of the many papers on his new desk. "Why...why me?" he muttered. When he heard his assistant leave the room, he looked up at the papers, and almost immediately, slammed his head back down.

He remembered back all those years ago when the late Hokage had asked him to become his apprentice. Oh, how happy he was when he received that offer. Of course he was going to accept, who wouldn't? If only he had known... He let himself drift off to sleep, welcoming their dreams as means to escape from the evil that is paperwork. Of course, he knew that he would have to face it eventually, but for now, he would let his mind wander...

As if on cue to ruin his one moment of sleep in the last twelve hours, his assistant barged in. "Hokage-sama!" He yelled. Itachi grudgingly raised his head, a piece of paper sticking to his forehead. "Yes, what is it?" He asked, his words slurring together due to his sleep deprived state. The Chunin resisted the urge to laugh at his Hokage's antics and delivered his message. "It's Naruto sir, he's just been detected leaving the village."

Itachi seemed to freeze for a moment, the paper oh his head slipping off and falling softly to the ground. "Hokage-sama?" The assistant spoke. Itachi then shot up and started shouting out orders at the Chunin. "Get me Shikamaru! I need him for his first mission as a chunin, I'm not going to let Naruto leave...NOW!" He yelled. "Y-yes Hokage-sama!" The man stuttered, rushing out the door to escape his new Hokage's wrath.

Itachi slumped back down in his chair and began rubbing his temples. "Why...Why me?" He muttered. He didn't have to wait long, it appeared that Shikamaru was already in the tower, apparently complaining about being made Chunin, something about it being to troublesome.  
There was a knock on his door before the bored Nara walked into his office. "You needed something, Itachi-sama?" He spoke with a smirk.

Itachi's eye twitched the smallest bit before he spoke, trying his best to ignore the jab. "Yes, I have a mission for you. It involves Naruto." Shikamaru appeared to straiten up at the mention of his teammate and friend. "What happened?" He demanded, concern plastered on his face. Itachi frowned before answering. "We've received word that he had just left the village, alone." The Nara froze at his implication, 'Naruto? Did you really just leave Konoha?'

Itachi continued on, "Shikamaru, I need you to lead a team out to bring him back, you'd need to have it ready by morning. Shikamaru broke from his thoughts and nodded at his Hokage and left the room. Deciding to distract himself from all this drama, he set out to try and levle the increasing paper mountains. Pulling out a stamp he muttered one sentence. "Paperwork, meet your maker." He then went on to finish his work in record time.

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**The next day, with team Shikamaru.

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**

Shikamaru led his five man team out to find their lost companion, Naruto. He had with him the five people he thought he would need to retrieve him. Shino led the front, he would've had Kiba but he seemed to have suffered an injury during the invasion. He took up the next spot, followed by Sasuke, his old friend Choji, and Neji watched their back.

Shino used his destruction bugs to keep track of Naruto's scent, occasionally he would send out his insects to get back on Naruto's trail whenever his bugs lost it. He noted to Shikamaru how it would've been easier to use his teammate Kiba for this. Shikamaru just shrugged it off while calling him a troublesome bug person. Shino seemed to hang his head at that, but nobody could really tell with that coat he always wore.

Neji, due to his Byakugan, took the back and made sure nothing was behind them, while also taking care of what few blind-spots there were in Shikamaru's team formation. Sasuke and Choji watched the right and the left respectively. Sasuke, with his quick reactions and his fire techniques, kept the middle while Choji, with all of his uh...big-bonedyness stayed in second to last and would plow though to the enemy in case of a surprise attack.

Shikamaru would help Shino watch the front by being second in the formation. He would also issue orders for whatever the situations they were in called for. He heard Shino speak something to him, about the people who were with Naruto being right up ahead. Shikamaru nodded at that and told his team to stay on alert.

Up ahead, the sound four noticed the leaf-nin behind them. "Oye, fatass! Give me the barrel and go deal with those punks!" Jirobo simply nodded and handed his hot-headed teammate the barrel containing their currently dead charge. He then leapt back while his teammates continued onward toward sound. "I was getting a bit hungry..." he mumbled as team Shikamaru came into sight.

They had little time to react before they ended up inside of a dirt dome. They tried many attempts to get out of their small prison only to start feeling immensely more tired then they sould've been. Shicamaru quickly realized that the dome was draining them of their chakra. He also spotted that on one spot the dome recovered from their attacks much slower.

He then instructed Choji to break though the spot using his human boulder technique. After he broke them out, he suggested that they leave him to take on the sound-nin while they continued onward. After they left, Shino asked if it was wise to leave Chojis alone to face the man. To which Shikamaru told him that he had much faith in his old friend.

As they continued on, Shikamaru made an attempt to infiltrate their team by disguising as Jirobo he then proceeded to ask for the barrel. Unforchunately, the team caught on quickly resulting in Neji staying behind to take on the one called Kidomaru. "A member of the Kumo clan, I thought you were all extinct." Neji spoke, while getting into stance. Kidomaru smiled while saying, "All but one. Aren't you lucky to find the last one in all of existence?"

Sino, Shikamaru, and Sasuke continued onward, staying a good distance behind the sound-nin to perform a surprise attack. Shikamaru felt a sudden chill down his back and instantly thought of Choji, his long time friend. He pushed it from his mind and continued onward. When they finally caught up to the sound-nin, they noticed something was missing. "Naruto..." Shikamaru mumbled.

When they ambushed the sound nin, Shikamaru instructed Sasuke to catch up to Naruto. He Nodded his head and continued onward. Shino somehow managed to fall into a ravine along with the odd two-headed sound-nin. He Narrowed his eyes while preparing his insects. Up above, Shikamaru was playing a pleasant game of cat and mouse with the red-headed sound-nin.

Sasuke finally spotted Naruto, but was interrupted by a very pale ninja. after a brief scuffle, which alost resulted in Sasuke about to get impaled, he was saved by Lee, who really should've been in the hospital after his loss in the preliminaries.(1) Lee told Sasuke to continue onward after Naruto and he did so.

He ran full force to reach his comrade, and succeed when he reached a waterfall which he recognized as the valley of the end. "NARUTO!" He screamed out. Said blond stopped atop the stone head of Uchina Madara. He turned to face his old friend before speaking. "Why have you followed me Sasuke? You should've stayed in Konoha."

Sasuke scowled, something he didn't due often before yelling out, "To save you!" Naruto frowned, not that Sasuke could see it, before speaking. "I don't need you to save me Sasuke. I left of my own free will." Despite the raging Uchina across from him, he kept his voice calm and steady. "Why would you ever do such a thing?" the Uchina asked.

Naruto let his eyes drop a little before replying, "You know how it is for me there Sasuke, what all those people have done to me." He held his left hand in front of him while saying that last part. "Out of all the people in Konoha, Your truly the only friend I have had. Even your brother looks at me weirdly. In sound, I have been given an offer, an offer to be accepted." Sasuke felt his rage drop for a moment to be replaced with sadness for his blond friend.

"I am sorry Sasuke, but I can not go back with you." Naruto made to leave but was stopped by the Uchina's voice. "Like it or not Naruto, I'm not going back emptyhanded!" He then charged at him, to which Naruto smiled. 'Sasuke...' He dodged his friend's clumsy attack and jumped for the water, to which Sasuke followed.

They held a brief scuffle in taijutsu, to which Naruto had the upper hands, before returning to the stone statues. This time Naruto on the first's statue, and Sasuke on Madara's. He saw Sasuke preparing a technique that he remembered their sensei using. He prepared his own Rasengan before jumping at Sasuke, intending to counter his attack Sasuke did the same, with them meeting each-other in the middle.

The techniques struggled for dominance before they both exploded in a bright light, obscuring them from view. Farther off, Kakashi was making his way to were his summon spoke of were two of his pupils were. He noticed it start to rain and made an effort to move faster and stop the fight before it was to late, which it was.

As he exited out of the tree line, he spotted one of his subordinates laying on the ground. "Sasuke!" He ran over to check his pulse, and thanked kami for the fact that he was still alive. His summon, Pakun, informed that Naruto's scent had been lost due to the rainfall. Kakashi hung his head a little at his failure before scooping up Sasuke and dashing off towards Konoha.

Little did he know, a plant-like figure had been watching the entire thing. "Interesting... Leader-sama will be pleased of this new development." The figure then melted into the ground, off to inform his leader of whatever the interesting event was.

* * *

**Later, in sound.**

* * *

Naruto was trying to follow the instructions giving by Tayuyu, but found it to be very hard. Luckily, Orochimaru's spy Kabuto had been sent out to find him and retrieve Kimimaro. He pointed him off in the right direction, before heading off to find his patient before he killed himself. He soon found himself face to face with two, who he suspected, Chunin guards. They wore Maroon cloaks to hide themselves from the surrounding environment.

They informed him that their leader was expecting him and informed him to go down the stairs and make his way to a tower in the middle of the cave. When he reached the door blocking his way into the well hidden village, he removed his leaf head-band. He stared at it for a moment, before stuffing in into his coat. He was a sound-nin now. He shouldn't be seen wearing it.

When he opened the large giant oak doors, he was met with the eery glow from lanterns placed on the street in front of him. He didn't see many people about, but the ones he did were very pale. They looked at him for a moment, with curiosity on their faces, before going back to whatever it was they had been doing. He found it odd for them not to look at him with hate, but he shrugged it off and looked for the tower he was supposed to go to. He spotted it easily.

It was a very large structure, almost reaching the top of the very large cave. He saw a purple sign on the top, much like the one on Konoha's tower. on the sign was the kanji for 'sound'. He began to make his way to the glittering structure, taking in the sights as he made his way. All the people he spotted along the way glanced at him for a moment, but they never looked at him with the hatred that the citizens of Konoha always gave him.

When he reached the tower, he spotted two of the sound-nin from before guarding the entrance. He recognized them as Hebiko's teammates. They smiled at him for a moment before motioning for him to follow. He did so and followed closely behind them. He noticed that the female one, Naikko, had begun wearing a case across her back, likely the instrument she used in the exams. The other, Ibuta, decided to star a conversation with the new sound-nin. "Tell me, Naruto, was it? About Konoha, what's it like to live outside?" His voice was very soothing, much like it had been during the exams. "It's alright I guess. I don't usually get to enjoy my surroundings what with all those idiots shooting death glares at me all the time." Ibuta seemed to frown at that. "Do not worry, you will like it much better in sound." Naikko spoke, her voice very cheery.

Naruto smiled underneath his mask at that. As they continued to make their way up the large tower, he and the two sound enjoyed a pleasant conversation, with the two telling him about how much he'll enjoy it even offering to give him a grand tour. When they finally reached the door to their Hebikage's throne room, they bid him farewell and went back to their posts. Naruto then hesitantly knocked on the door in front of him.

"Come in...Naruto." The voice that spoke sounded high and almost as if the person was in some sort of pain. Naruto then opened the door and walked over to the snake shadow. By his side was his daughter, Hebiko.

* * *

**Meanwhile, in Konoha.

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**

Itachi was looking over the report given by Shikamaru. Almost all off the team was in critical condition. The most apparently being lee, who apparently had been caught by accident in an attack by Gaara against two sound-nin. Gaara was currently in Lee's hospital room, suddenly having become very protective of his new friend.

Neji, Choji, and Shino were also in bad shape. Choji was currently being treated by the Nara's, while Neji and Shino were in recovery. Apparently, an attack used by the two sound brothers did a devastating amount of damage to Shino and his insects. Itach tossed the report back on his desk before dismissing the Nara.

After he left, he slammed his head on his desk repeatedly. "Why...why...Why did he have to pick me?" He mumbled in between the head-bangs. He stopped banging his head for a moment due to a sudden idea that popped into his head "Tsunadenade!" While he knew that the sanin would never accept to being Hokage, he could really need her medical expertise to save the Genin he had sent after Naruto.

He then went to work preparing a summons for jiraya. Said toad sanin suddenly felt a sneeze reach his nose, almost alerting his presence to the beautiful women on the other side of the fence. After shrugging it off, he went back to conducting his "Reaserch."

* * *

**Chapter end.

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**

**(1) I think I forgot to mention the other fights from the prelims, which I will not due in the new story.I think I paired him up against Gaara, which resulted in his loss. Try not to picture it being as severe as the one from canon. That way Lee showing up can make more sense.**

**(A/N)**

**And there you have it folks! Itachi as the Hokage? Who in their right minds would aloow that to happen! ...Oh...right... In any case, just so you know, he along with a few otheres our OOC. Espisely due to the fact he was never ordered to kill his entire clan. Also, it seems that Sasuke failed to bring back Naruto, and we see him meeting with Orochimaru. What is it that he could whant with our blond sort-of-hero? And we see the new Hokage about to send out Jiraya to get Tsunade to help with some problems in Konoha. And whats this? Akastsuki is on the move again? Find out more in the next exiting chapter of STRINGS THAT BIND US!!!!!!!**(Dragon Ball Z referance in case you didn't notice.)_~Malsyn_.


	11. The Drunken Sanin

**Hello friends! Just to know, since that last one was my tenth chapter, I had decided to put some funny little references in my Author's notes. I Likely won't be doing that again next time.** I**n any case, like I promised, I have the chapter finished, I truly hope you all enjoy it. In this chap we finally get to** **see Tsunade**, **the legendary sitting duck, and please, read and review.** ...I Predict a Riot by Kaiser Chiefs.

* * *

**The Strings that bind us.  
Chapter 11: The Drunken sanin**

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**Konoha, with Jiraya.

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**

"Ahh...this is what I LIVE for..." The perverted toad sanin mumbled, while looking though at a couple of female Konoha citizens though a hole in the wooden fence. Unbeknownst to him, or perhaps he knew and was just ignoring the fact, two people from Konoha's council stood right behind him. More specifically, Homura, and Koharu, the Third's old teammates, and part of the now much larger council.

Inside, Koharu was currently fuming. Even though she may no longer have men looking at her like they used to, except that one weird creepy guy, she still felt she had a duty to her fellow females. Homura was currently resisting the urge to shove Jiraya aside and have a look himself, to see those beautiful young woman. Koharu noticed how he suddenly brought his hand to his nose, and the blood leaking from them.

She finally felt it was enough. "PERVERT!" She shouted, while jumping away to watch the two old perverts get beaten from a safe distance. The following spectacle was likely the most amusing thing she saw in years. After the girls left, she went over to join with her old teammate, who tried to make it seam like he hadn't just been beaten up by several young woman who were still completely naked. She noted he still held his hand to his nose.

Jiraya was currently laying on the ground in a very comical looking manner. "What the hell was that for! I just got beat up by several young naked and beautiful women..." He started to giggle, Koharu started to growl. Homura however, after regaining his composure, cleared his throat to get their attention. "Jiraya-sama, I suppose you know why we are here?"

Jiraya had a look of realization spread across his face. "Oh, that's right! I was supposed to go and fetch Tsunade today wasn't I?" He asked, just to verify. "Yes, that is correct. Have you chosen who would be accompanying you yet?" Homura asked. Jiraya frowned at that, while pulling himself off the ground. "Do I have a choice?"

"No not really, most of our Genin our either already on missions or in intensive care, part of the reason why we need you to find Tsunade. Against the Hokage-sama's wishes, Sasuke is really the only one who is available for such a task." Jiraya sighed a bit before straitening up and leaving the two older and retired ninja behind. He called to them behind his shoulder, "I'll go fetch the Uchina and we'll leave by sundown."

The two old teammates watched the perverted toad sanin walk away, before Koharu spoke up. "I don't suggest you think in that perverted way again, Homura, or there'll be hell to pay." She turned and began to walk off to their home. "Of course honey, never again." He then followed his wife who had been with him since the day they had graduated from the academy.**(1)**

Jiraya walked on to where he knew he would find the Uchina, in that same always he's been in since he returned home. The one he rarely left nowadays. The one that led Naruto to become what he is today, a half-puppet. Jiraya sighed when he thought back to that event. He knew he should've followed his students wishes and had become Naruto's godfather. Oh, if only he had, none of this would have happened.

Like he had expected, there the Uchina sat, staring at the spot he suspected that Naruto had laid on, the one that held the very large bloodstain that had never been washed away, left there as a trophy to what those men had done, even if they contributed to the stain with their own blood. Jiraya walked up to the boy, who looked up at him. "Hey kid, your brother would like you to join me on a mission."

The boy simply nodded. He always did what his brother asked, and would only do it more-so due to his brother becoming Hokage. "Go home and pack up, we'll be gone for awhile. I suggest you say goodbye to your friends for now." He nodded again, and stood up to leave, but was stopped by Jiraya. "Kid, I can understand what you are going though. My own teammate, my own best friend, he left Konoha." Sasuke stood still for a moment, before he walked off. Jiraya let out a sigh. 'Damn, this will be harder then I thought'

Later, just in-front of the gate with Jiraya, Sasuke, and the few uninjured members of the rookie nine.

Sasuke stood in front of the ninja that wanted to see him off. Those would be the two annoying fangirls, Hinata, and Kiba, who for some reason was using a crutch. "Good luck Sasuke-kun! And don't worry about that bastard demon, he probably left because he thought you were to strong." Sasuke flinched at how the pink headed ninja referred his best friend, but tried to reel in his anger.

"Yea, I bet he was so weak he thought he'd have to leave Konoha to become stronger, like that'll ever happen. That freak will never be as strong as Sasuk-" Ino and her friend Sakura were interrupted by two ninja doing things nobody would ever expect them to do. Ino and Sakura were both punched in the gut by Sasuke and Hinata respectively. "Never speak of Naruto like that!" They both yelled at the same time.

Jiraya watched in sympathy for Sasuke, he was like that when Orochimaru had left. It got to the point were he himself left Konoha to try and provoke his friend to come home. Needless to say, he didn't blame Sasuke for what he just did, the girls brought it upon themselves. He did, however, fell highly amused by the normally quite pale eyed Hinata punching Ino like that.

The two dojutsu bering ninja looked at each other in slight shock at what the other did, and in Hinita's case, what she had just done. Sasuke suddenly felt something he never felt before, an emotion he couldn't quite describe, while he looked at the girl. Hinata at the same time felt things that were reserved for her Naruto-kun. They both turned away from each-other in embaresment.

Jiraya smiled upon seeing the blush on Sasuke's face. "Come on brat, the sooner we get there the sooner will get back."

Sasuke simply nodded and followed after him, completely forgetting to yell at the sanin for calling him a brat. Kiba just stared at his blushing teammate and the two girls writhing in pain in complete shock. His friend Akamaru felt the same confusion as he sat next to him. He barked out a question only Kiba could understand, to which he replied. "I don't know, but I think I'm scared." He said this as he looked over at his pale eyed teammate.

Back in the Hokage's office, Itachi suddenly felt the urge to inform his brother about safe sex. 'Must be reading way too much of that Icha Icha stuff I found in the desk...nah.' he then brought the small orange book to his face once more and started to giggle uncontrollably. Now that he was the Hokage, he knew why his predecessor always read these books. It always seems to make all that paperwork disappear.

* * *

**In sound, with Naruto.

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**

Naruto tugged at his new coat before fiddling with his new headband once more, while he stood in front of his recently purchased mirror. When he had finished being debriefed by Orochimaru and given his new headband, he decided he needed to dump all his old cloths and get something new. Having been told he'd be placed on a team as a Chunin with Hebiko and her teammates, he thought he should get something that matched the color of his new teammates cloaks.

He was now wearing a long navy blue trench coat. This one held an old style black Chinese, a nation he studied in history books, dragon on it's arms and on the back instead of the vines that were on his old. It also had a hood, which he usually wore all the time. Due to keeping the silver skull-shaped buttons closed most the time, you rarely saw the new chain-mail vest he wore. He also dawned a new pair of black ANBU style pants.

Even though people accepted him in sound, he never felt comfortable having all his arms displayed to the would, despite what that spider-nin told him. That reminded him of how bad of shape the five had been when they were brought back. The pale one had almost died to whatever disease he had, and the others were also in bad shape.

Ukon and his brother, Sakun. were found having been impaled by a great many bladed weapons. Kabuto's jutsu easily patched most of it up and brought him back from the edge of death. Kabuto had one of the Chunin he had brought with him when he returned from putting Kimimaru, take him back to have the rest of his injures healed.

Tayuyu was found with several logs laying atop her. She had managed to some how get her doki to protect her from the majority of it all, yet one had managed to land. Kabuto used some med techniques to heal the worst of it and had another sound Chunin take her back to be placed in intensive care.

Kidomaru was just barely alive when Kabuto got to him, with all his chakra points closed he almost died immediately. Due to his spider-like DNA he was able to hang on long enough for Kabuto to forcibly reopen them, thus saving his life. He had been well enough that he joined Kabuto to fin the last member, and one of the worst off, of the sound five.

Jirobo had apparently been crushed by a large amount of force by one of the leaf-ninja, for almost every bone in his body was either cracked, fractured, or flat out broken. Manny of his ribs pierced his internal organs. Luckily, being of such levle to rival the great toad sanin, he was able to perform surgery right there and fixed his broken ribs and heeled any organs pieced by them. Jirobo was truly lucky nothing vital had been pierced, or else he would have died.

Naruto felt sorry they were all in such pain from when they helped him escape Konoha. He never wanted anybody to get hurt like that, at least not the people who helped him leave, and maybe Sasuke. Yet Sasuke was only knocked out, the others were almost dead. He sighed as he pulled on his new black, metal-plated, leather gloves, ones that held the symbol for sound carved into the steel plates.

He then put on his new black combat boots, fiddled with the head band around his neck once more, threw the hood over his head so that it his his eyes, and was out the door. He was surprised that he'd get to leave sound so soon after he just arrived, but he wanted to please his new leader. Orochimaru wanted to get his arms fixed as well as Kimimaru healed.

Naruto had offered to construct him some puppet arms, for he was very proficient at that, but his new master had declined and told that if there was a chance that he could still keep them, he would try his hardest for that to happen. So Naruto was to set out with Kabuto and his leader to find Tsunade. Their plan was to try and convince her to heal his arms, and to join them so they could heal the Kaguya.

Orochimaru was thinking about possibly bribing her with the though of having her loved ones brought back from the dead. Naruto didn't know the sanin well enough to know what she'd truly want, but he felt that anyone who had their loved ones brought back would do anything for the person that did so.

Hebiko had addressed that she went with her father, but was told that he needed a stand-in and the only other person he trusted would be there to keep his dead arms from causing to much pain. If only he was still able to move into a new body, maybe then he could be his of the pain and his blindness, but alas, for some reason the Uchina's body structure completely ruined that from ever happening again. He was pleased however to here of how his new and last host body would live forever should no severe harm come to it.

Naruto found the way his master was still so young slightly disturbing, and at the same time slightly intriguing. Perhaps using a cross between gene manipulation using Uchina DNA and the jutsu, he could somehow devise a more improved version of Orochimaru's immortal technique. He had heard of how for a time Orochimaru worked to recreate the effect, until his morals showed up full force and he drop the human experiments.

It seemed that it was likely just a unique case, but Naruto felt he should attempt this himself someday, likely on people from Konoha... He was starting to wonder were theses thoughts were coming from, but shrugged them off. "**PERHAPS YOU ARE FINALLY REALIZING HOW MUCH PAIN THOSE...PEOPLE, IF YOU CAN CALL THEM THAT, HURT YOU.**" Kyubi spoke, trying to reassure his container. 'Perhaps...'

Naruto finally spotted the to older Sound-nin Kabuto was wearing the same outfit he had when he went to get the sound five, and Orochimaru looked much as he did before, wearing the same white Kage robes, yet leavening the hat behind. He also leaned on a cain in one hand, like used to help him know his bearings better.

Despite not being able to see his newest student, he recognized the sound of those hollow footsteps anywhere, along with the sound of metal links scraping against each-other and the soles of boots slamming onto the ground. Add up all that along with the slow metallic sounding breathing the boy made, he could tell it was Naruto wearing some new cloths a mile away.

"Good morning Naruto. I see that you have purchased some new cloths." He spoke, smiling as he did so. Kabuto smirked a little when he saw the surprised look on Naruto's face. "Naruto-san, You should know that with all his years of being sightless, his senses have adapted and improved significantly." Naruto seemed to relax as he continued towards his two superiors. "Come, now that we are all here, let us be off."

They followed Orochimaru out side two were the two Chunin guards gave the wishes of good-luck to their blind Hebikage. Said sanin thanked the two and strapped his cane to his side, and jump off into the trees, his two subordinates following closely after him. Naruto found it surprising how well his blind master moved so well though the trees, far better then even him. Orochimaru just smiled. 'It's always good to get out of there'

* * *

**Days later, in a large town that had a castle at it's center.

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**

In a rather small casino, one blond sanin was for some reason having her best string of good luck she's had in years, already she was up five hundred thousand Ryo. She knew that something terrible was about to happen, yet she didn't know what. Her assistant for the first time in her life was actually encouraging her to gamble some.

She and the Shizune, her assistant, were now walking along in one of the town's large streets. the dark haired woman beside her was currently carrying two duffel bags in each hand full of cash, and a large grin on her face. Despite all the cash she currently had, she new that at some point Shizune would snap out of it and tell her to repay all those debts, which will leave barely anything left.

She sighed to her self at the thought of losing all that money in this amazing sprout of good luck. Suddenly, she felt a chakra she hasn't felt in years, one that she recognized instantly. She spun around and saw him standing there, along with two other ninja beside him. One held a long silver hair and wore glasses, the other wearing a long hooded coat, that obscured her from seeing his face.

The one she recognized was in white robes, and had a head-band tied around his eyes. "Orochimaru..." Shizune suddenly dropped the bags and held up her arm, she knew of this ninja from tales spoken by her master. The hooded one did the same, and quickly got in front of his master. "Ku ku ku... Hello Tsunade, missed me?"

Said sanin narrowed her eyes at her old teammate, and got strait to the point. 'What the hell do you want?" Orochimaru almost looked hurt by what she said. "Tsunade, I'm shocked that you would assume that of me. Can't old teammates just get together and have a drink once in awhile?" Tsunade smirked. "Of course, but I've haven't seen you since you left Konoha, why would you come bothering me now?"

Orochimaru frowned. "Well, yes I did indeed wish to ask you something." Tsunade smirked, "I thought so." Orochimaru ignored her interruption and continued on. "You see, during an attempt to get revenge, I ended up having my arms sealed up. I was hoping you would heal them." The blond sanin's eyes narrowed at the man. "Oh? And just what exactly was this, 'Revenge'?"

Orochimaru smiled. "Why, invading Konoha of course." Shock was soon clearly plastered on the blond sanin's face. "Though, the majority of my intentions failed, for Konoha still stands, I did succeed in two of my goals." Tsunade scowled at him, "And just what were these 'Intentions', you snake bastard." Said snake smiled at her. "Well, one of those would be standing right in front of me, my newest subordinate., Naruto."

Tsunade froze. 'Naruto?' "And the other would be, the death of our dear old sensei." Orochimaru saw how the slug sanin wasn't going to speak, so gave her an offer. "If you do decide to help me Tsunade, I will revive for you your brother, and your late lover, Dan. Meet me at this spot one week from now to give me an answer. Kabuto, Naruto. Let's go." With that, they were gone.

In another part of town, we find Sasuke and Jiraya just making their way inside. "Jiraya-sensei, you said you would teach me a jutsu when we got to the next town, what is it?" Jiraya froze in his step. 'Damn, I though kids had short term memory's...' The toad sanin did the only thing he could think of, he pulled out a water balloon from a nearby stand, and tossed it to Sasuke. "Catch." he spoke, and Sasuke did so.

"Sasuke, try to spin your chakra inside that balloon, if you can make it burst, I'll both tell you what this technique is and teach you the next step. Now, I'll go...scout out some of the buildings and see if Tsunade is here and rent us a hotel for the night. You go do whatever." Sasuke nodded and had to toss that balloon into the air to catch a large sack of them so they wouldn't explode on him. The first on landed and exploded on his head.

He grudgingly made his way outside to find somewhere to train with the technique. After several hours later, he finally finished the first stage. "Hey! This is almost like that technique Kakashi-sensei tried to teach me. To bad I never finished it though, he looked really sad after all that training." He the got up and ran off to find his new perverted sensei.

After he showed him how he had finished the first stage, Jiraya felt that they should celebrate. For some reason, that meant the should go out and find a bar. Inside that bar, they found the same person who they've been looking for. "Jiraya?" She stuttered, clearly plastered. "Tsunade?" He spoke in return. Sasuke eyed the woman for a moment and made a comment he soon regretted. "I thought you said she was old." He was soon seen being pounded though a wall.

After she settled back down, and Sasuke in bandages, they were seen sitting in a stall talking over the recent events and how Konoha had been attacked. She told them how Orochimaru visited her and asked her to heal his arms, but left out his intended reward. Then Jiraya told her of how Konoha needed her, to which she declined. Soon after, the slug sanin and Sasuke got into a fight.

"Alright! Let's take this outside!" She yelled out. after they were out in the street, Tsunade made a boast. "I can defeat you using only one finger, Sasuke." Said Uchina growled and got ready to charge, preparing to try and use Kakashi's technique once more. after it was called, he skipped going though hand-seals and immediately focused chakra in his hand, forming an odd cross being a Rasengan and a Chidori.

'What the hell!? Is that a Rasengan?' Sasuke th charged her and she stood still, waiting for the last moment to slam his hand into the ground, and flicked him right into a building. "Jiraya, what the hell were you thinking trying to teach him that technique? I'm out of here." With that, she left Jiraya to tend to Sasuke's wounds. 'Dammit Tsunade...' This was clearly going to take more then just a talk and a mindless duel.

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**Chap end.

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**

**(1) This is very likely to be completly OC, but don't you recall how they're always togueter when they are shown? I deceided to just make them a married couple.**

**(A/N) **

**How interestting this chapter was! Just to answer your questions strait away, yes there will be some Sasuke/Hinita in this fic. I'm still not sure on who Naruto will be paiered with yet, but I'll likely have it soon enough. So, we see that Sasuke never completly finished the Chidori, and some how mixed to Jutsus togueter. We will have the sanin confretation next chapter and we'll get to see if poor Orochimaru's arms get to be healed up and weather shell be joining Konoha, or Oto. You will all find out in the next exiting chapter of our wonderfull little storry here. Oh, and before I forget, I hope you are all checking out my newest story, it already has two chaps along with a prologue. See you all next time! **_~Malsyn_


	12. The Fighting sanins

**Hello People, I think I owe you all an apology for the lack of an update in so long. So, I apologize. Now, in this chapter we see the confrontation between the sanin along with other things. I was working on this chapter the entire week, just trying to get over my sudden writers block. I was finally able to do that today with the help of some metal music. Now, Please, read and review... Steel that sleeps the eye by Baroness.**

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**Disclaimer! I don't own Naruto!**

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**Strings that Bind Us**

**Chapter 12:The Fighting sanins **

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With Sasuke **

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He couldn't believe it, that stupid old granny. Why wouldn't she join them?! "Dammit!" Sasuke shouted as he slammed yet another Chidori-Rasengan into the boulder in front of him. That was another thing, he never ever could repeat the Chidori like he had when he tried to bring Naruto back, it just started to turn into an odd cross between two very strong attacks. Yet, it just never seemed as strong as either.

He tried to calm himself by slowly breathing in and out. He brought his hand down, completely skipping the hand-signs, for they didn't do any good anyway, and concentrated on forming a ball of lightning in his hand. The shell for the Rasengan formed, and the electricity of the Chidori formed around and inside the shell. He ran forward and thrust the attack into the boulder once more, it shattered.

He brought his arm up to block the pieces of rock from hitting him, he then brought it back down. "Woa..." He mumbled. He looked over at the pieces of rock that had at one point been a proud boulder. He noticed distinct swirl marks on a few of the rocks, along them were also scorch marks from the lightning. He smiled. Even though he could never create a Chidori, or a Rasengan, he seemed to have successfully created a new move. "I think I'll call it... The Rasendori, the spiraling birds."

He suddenly felt the drain of chakra from all the attacks he had been making, and fell to the ground, exhausted. He laid there for a moment, looking up at the clouds. They slowly drifted along the sky, without a care in the world to what was happening down on the earth below. They at least, didn't have to worry about fighting, or loosing friends, or even stubborn old people who just wouldn't listen.

He growled a little, before forcing himself back up. He would make her see, that it wasn't pointless to go back to her home village. They needed her there, no matter what she said. There were a great number of people who were dying back home, all because she wouldn't go with them. Sasuke went over and picked up whatever weapons that he may have left discarded on the ground, and went back to the hotel were he and Jiraya were staying.

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**With Naruto, in the hotel exactly opposite of were Sasuke was staying at.

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**

Naruto sat in the luxurious room his master had rented, reading a pleasant magazine from suna about puppets. To him, it was like his old sensei's 'Icha Icha Paridise' series. He giggled when he saw a new model for a smaller and more powerful senbon launcher. what fools they were, for giving away their secrets so freely. Of course, he couldn't complain, what with all the new improvements on his puppets given from the magazine's suggestions.

He stopped reading when he heard a knock on the hotel room's door. 'That's odd, why would we be having visitors?' He thought. "Hello? Who's there?" He called out, while getting up to see to the door. "Uh...pizza guy? We have a lovely uh... miso...ramen pizza? Yea, a miso ramen pizza, for one Naruto Uzumaki, free of charge due to you being our hundredth customer" Naruto suddenly stopped were he stood. Could it be true? Did the god's really bring him this gift from the heavens? A miso ramen pizza? Likely not, but he couldn't risk it.

Once he opened the door, he came face to face with two people he had hoped to never see again. One, had distinctive blue skin and yellow eyes, the other, had no eyebrows. "You... What do you two want?" Naruto demanded, reading chakra to activate his swords at any instant. The blue one, Kisame, if he remembered right, smirked at him. "Nothing much, we just need you to come with us." Naruto narrowed his eyes. "For what." He demanded once again.

Zabuza, the one without eyebrows, frowned beneath his bandages. "Er.. Kisame? You know, he doesn't exactly have to be in one piece to take him back, how 'bout we just cut of his legs, make it easier." The blue skinned one smirked at that. "Oh? Why didn't you say so in the first place!" He suddenly brought his sword down at Naruto, who activated the blades on his three fake arms just in time to avoid getting cleaved in two.

With Kisame's sword caught, he attempted to stab though him with his one sword. The blade bounced off of Zabuza's blade just when he masterfully blocked it without harming his partner. They all jumped back from that spot from across each other. Naruto further into his room, and the two swordsman dead ahead of him out in the hall. The blond noticed in the mirror beside the door that there was a closed window behind him.

He eye-smiled for a brief moment while giving them a pleasant wave goodbye, then turned around and jumped though the window, breaking it upon impact. "Shit!" Zabuza shouted, both Akatsuki members then jumped though the same window. "We're not going back to leader-sama empty handed!" Kisame shouted, while they fell down to the street below from the third story hotel room.

"What the hell!?" Sasuke shouted, running over to his just in time to see the two swordsman turning a corner. "What the fuck are those two doing here!?" "Eh? You say something brat?" Jiraya said, rising from what Sasuke had assumed was just a pile of sake bottles. "..." The raven haired Uchina glared at the sanin, who glared back with a sickly expression plastered on his face. Finally, he let out a along with a sigh, "Nothing, forget about it Jiraya-sensei." The boy then climbed back to his bead to continue his nap. Jiraya simply fell back into the bottles.

"Get back here you brat!" Kisame yelled, while cutting down a cabbage stand in his way. "Gah! My cabbages!"**(1)** The man yelled upon seeing his precious stand destroyed along with his prized vegetables laying squashed on the ground. The two swordsman ignored him and went on their way. "Why the hell would you leave a vegetable stand in the middle of the fucking road!?" Zabuza yelled to his friend. "Hell if I know." Kisame replied back.

Naruto looked back and saw that the two ninja were still following him. "Dammit... What the hell do they want with me!" He turned his head back in time to avoid colliding with a wall. He turned down the left street while he continued to franticly find out were his new master was "Orochimaru!" He yelled out.

Behind him, the two figures took pause. "Wait, did he say Orochimaru?" Kisame asked his eyebrow-less friend. "That's the guy who left Akatsuki right? Before I joined in?" Kisame nodded. "Yea, you wouldn't believe that he tried to take leader-sama's body as a host just before so." Zabuza looked ahead and noticed that the blond was now out of sight. "Jeez, that's sick. Um... I think we lost him." Kisame looked over to were the blond had just been moments before. After a few moments pause, they both let out in harmony, "SHIT!!!"

Naruto looked back to were he heard the scream. He chuckle before turning back to find his master. "Idiots..." After minutes of fruitless search, he decided to head back to their room, perhaps he'd be there waiting? Along his way back, he saw the Cabbage vendor that he had passed earlier crying of a grave that read, 'Prized Cabages'. He blinked before he slowly backed away and went down a different street.

Once he arrived back in his room, he spotted his two masters sitting on a couch. Kabuto was currently reading a book aloud to Orochimaru, due to the fact he both could read using his eyes, nor his hands. The blind man's arms twitched occasionally, signaling the pain that he was clearly trying to ignore. The man tuned his head slightly towards Naruto and spoke out, "Ah, Naruto-kun. What kept you?"

Said half-puppet frowned before he took a seat near the two. Kabuto book-marked the page he had been on and set the book face down on the end-table on his left. "That is actually something that I needed to tell you, same explanation goes for why our window is broken. Orochimaru and Kabuto smirked. "Oh? And why did you need to break the window, Naruto-kun. You do know that we now have to pay extra, right?" The hebikage asked.

"Err... yea... You see, there were these two guys outside our door who interrupted me during a fantastic article about senbon launchers with promises of miso ramen pizza..." The two men listened intently while Naruto spoke of the two Akatsuki. Orochimaru's smirk noticeably changed into a deep frown. 'hmm... So, you have finally started to collect the vessels...' Naruto snapped the kage from his musings. "Is there something wrong, Hebikage-sama?"

Orochimaru put on a fake smile while saying, "Every-things alright, don't worry about it Naruto-kun. Now, I suppose we should get ready for our big meeting tomorrow. Kabuto, would you mind turning on the shower for me?" Kabuto mumbled out a 'Hai', before he went to start his master's shower. "Naruto-kun, why don't you get some rest. We have a big day tomorrow." The blond complied and walked over to where his bed lay. He took off his mask and placed on the nightstand, slipped under the covers, and went to sleep. Unbeknownst to him, his master was frowning once more. 'Naruto... I must not let you die so soon, at least not until my plans have succeeded'

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**Next day, with Orochimaru and his assistants, along with Tsunade.**

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Tsunade stood across from her old teammate. She had come to a decision. After the incident with that Uchina brat, she knew what she was going to do. Last night, she had drugged Jiraya to prevent him from chasing after her. Orochimaru's guard, Naruto. She still couldn't believe that he was still alive. She had assumed when she heard of the attack that he had died. Now, here he was, apparently missing most of his body by the looks of those arms.

"Ah, Tsunade-san, you decided to show up. Have you come to your decision?" The blind snake sanin asked. Tsunade frowned, while replying back, "Yea, I have decided. Orochimaru, hold out your arms." The man smiled and did so. Instantly, a light green glow appeared in her hands as she made her way to him. Kabuto eyed the glow suspiciously, but let it make contact with his master's arms. She had decided to help them after-all.

Orochimaru's smile brightened as he instantly felt the healing chakra's effect. Excellent, she had complied. Now, how would he propose her joining his village? After several minutes, the glow disappeared from her hands. His arms still stung, but this was definitely better then before. Tsunade looked exhausted for a moment before she regained herself and spoke to the other sanin. "Orochimaru, There isn't much else I can do to help your arms. You won't be able to use as much chakra as before, but they work again at least. Now, about Dan, and my brother?"

Orochimaru frowned. "Tsunade, you didn't completely fix my arms so you can only have one of the two I'm afraid." Tsunade froze. Only one? But, how could she chose? Her dear little brother, or the man that had saved her from depression. She couldn't blame her teammate for this, after all, he did agree to only give them back if his arms were healed completely.

Orochimaru's frown brightened up. 'Excellent, this is the perfect way for me to bring her back to the village.' "Tsunade, if you can't decide, I can bring you back both of them if you would just come back to Otogakure with me, I have someone there in dire need of your services." Tsunade looked up in disbelief. He would really do that for her? "Of course, I'll go with you, if it meant I could have them back..." The snake sanin smiled. "Good, meet me at the front gate in an hour. That should give you enough time to prepare."

After she left, Orochimaru smiled. That is, until he heard a familiar voice behind him. "Orochimaru!" Jiraya shouted, stumbling into the alleyway along with Shizune, and Sasuke. "N-Naruto?" Sasuke mumbled, upon seeing his newly clothed old friend. 'Dammit... What is he doing here?' Naruto thought, while getting into a defensive stance in front of his master. "Oye! Snake-teme! Where's Tsunade? What did you do with her!" The angry sanin yelled.

Orochimaru smirked. "Your too late Jiraya-san. She has already healed my arms, and she agreed to come back with me to sound." Jiraya looked shocked by this. "What? Did she really... no, never. She would never agree to something like that... Grrr... Damn you Orochimaru! This is all your fault!" He suddenly bit his thumb, and ran though a familiar set of hand-seals. "**Kuchiyose no Jutsu!**"

The area was silent, until Kabuto spoke something into his master's ears, and the snake shadow burst out laughing. "Hahaha!! You can't even summon right Jiraya!" Jiraya looked down at the pitiful toad, while Sasuke was clearly annoyed at his sensei. "Yo!" The small orange toad spoke. Orochimaru then suddenly interrupted the humorous seen "This is how you summon! **Kuchiyose no Jutsu!**"

He had apparently been running though his own hand-seals while Jiraya was distracted. As the chakra ran though Orochimaru's arms, he had to force back a scream from the pain it caused. Unfortunately for him, the pain was too great and he was not prepared for it. "Gyah!!" He chocked out. The chakra suddenly faltered, and what appeared was a purple snake no bigger the the orange toad.

It was silent again, before Jiraya broke out laughing, and his two supposedly loyal servants blanched. "Grrr... What are you waiting for, attack them!" The angered sanin cried out. The snake complied, but was forced to fight against the toad. The two sanin-Orochimaru just listening-and the others watched the small battle take place, to which neither was able to get the upper hand.

While they were fighting, Jiraya cleared his throat and gained the other's attention. "Well, since our chakra is messed up, how 'bout we settle for some good ol' taijutsu." He didn't wait for a response and immediately lunged at Orochimaru. Naruto tried to block him, but was tackled by Sasuke. Kabuto was also starting a fight with Shizune. This left the snake shadow little else to do but duck.

Naruto pushed Sasuke off of him, who then in turn lept back further. He knew he wouldn't be able to get away and help his master until Sasuke was down, so he got into his own unique taijutsu stance, one that makes good use of his extra arms. "Sasuke..." He mumbled. "Naruto..." Sasuke replied, mumbling the word out as well. They stood stock still for a moment, like two stone statues just before their collapse, and suddenly disappeared in a blur of movement.

They soon met in a flurry of fists. Naruto was heavily on the offensive, mainly due to the advantage of having two more arms then his former best friend. Sasuke had to constantly block or dodge the many punches that were thrown at him from Naruto, he knew that he would need to start using jutsu soon if he wanted to win.

Unexpectedly, Naruto suddenly shot at his blades and began adding them to the attack. Sasuke pulled out two kunai, that took the blunt of the attack. Yet, he still managed to get a few cuts and some deeper wounds. As long as he ended the battle soon, they wouldn't be life-threatening. Sparks flew as the two former friends battle it out. Sasuke managed to land a solid kick on Naruto's chest, tossing him back a few feet.

He took this as an opportunity to use his favorite flame technique. He ran though the hand-seals and called out the giant fireball attack to his opponent, Naruto. Said blond responded by swinging the forearms of his prosthetics in a circular motion, along with spinning his own sword as well. The spinning blades blew away the flames, and Naruto decided to show Sasuke a real fireball.

He ran though the hand-seals with both sets of arms and unleashed the powerful attack. "**Katon: Daikatoppa!**" He yelled out, just as the flame appeared between his top two index fingers. He breathed deeply and then exhaled, the air igniting on contact with the flame. "The hell!" Sasuke shouted, as he quickly replaced himself with a nearby rock.

The rock melted before it even hit the ground under the intense heat, and much of the clearing had been burnt to smithereens by the attack. The other battlers stopped briefly and looked over at the flames before returning to their fights. Orochimaru actually used this distraction to call try again to call upon his snakes, now knowing of the pain he'd experience and better prepared for it.

"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!" He yelled out for the second time that day. The pain caused by chakra running though his arms arose once again, yet he was more prepared to face it drove it back. He smirked once the pain completely subsided, and the gigantic plume of smoke appeared. "Orochimaru! Why have you summoned me here?" The gigantic purple snake asked his summoner. He didn't have to look long, for he saw the reason in front of him. "Ah, Jiraya."

Said pervert ran though his own hand-seals, and tried to get enough control over his chakra to summon his greatest ally. A plume of smoke, equally large as Manda appeared, and from it emerged the strongest toad to ever walk the earth, Gamabunta. The castle sized amphibian immediately recognized the situation, and pulled out his gigantic weapon and pointed it at gigantic reptile. "Heh, I always wanted a snake-skin wallet."

The giant snake let out a plume of smoke in the over sized toad's face before snapping back a reply. "Shut up, I'll turn you into toad jerky." The gigantic snake lunged at the toad, who proceed to perform a collaboration jutsu with Jiraya. "**Katon: Gamayu Endan!(2)**" He called out, and then lit the oil that had shot from Gamabunta's mouth.

The Large snake used a technique similar to a replacement technique, using his shed skin to avoid the attack. He then coiled around the gigantic toad who tried in vain to get free from the snakes grasp. Manda smiled and prepared to sink his teeth into the gigantic toad. Said toad managed to wrestle his arm free and proceeded to block Manda's attack with it.

The snake recoiled back from the blade and unwrapped himself from around the toad. He flicked his tongue out before he used a very odd technique, he opened his mouth and thousands of snakes spilled forth at Gamabunta. Jiraya helped fend off against them by performing the same fire technique as before and vaporizing them before the even came close. Manda paid no remorse for the loss of his children and leapt at the amphibian once again.

Kabuto had paid no mind when Manda was summoned and proceed to attack the talented medic-nin, Shizune. He practically laughed at her when she used her own chakra scalpel, it had done barely any good against his own skills. All it would take was one good hit and she would be- He had his thoughts interrupted and jumped back as boulders came flying at him from Manda's attack.

When he got back into stance, he had to stop himself from laughing. It seemed that the aspiring medic-nin had taken a direct hit from the flying boulders and was now lying on the ground. He walked over to were she lay and checked her pulse, she was alive. It seemed that the rock had only knocked her out. He gave her an injection to make sure she stayed down until the fight was over and took the time to watch the battles take place.

They all seemed to be nearing their close. He took a look and saw Sasuke start to perform an odd technique, one without hand-seals. Naruto did the same and began to create Rasengan in his hand. Sasuke's attack seemed similar to Naruto's, yet crackled with electricity. The entire area seemed to still as they leapt at each-other. When the attacks met, Kabuto had to shield his eyes from the explosion that came forth.

He looked up when he felt the large sword of Gambunta's hit the ground, and he heard Manda yell out, "Damn you Gambunta! This isn't over!" He disappeared in a plume of smoke, as did Gambunta and his sword. He watched as Jiraya raced over to his fallen student, who seemed to have been knocked out by the attack. Naruto, however, simply staggered back up, not seeming very affected by the attack save the blood on his lone real arm.

Jiraya, seeing how he had clearly lost, picked up his student along with Shizune and disappeared in a twirl of leaves. Kabuto walked over to his master, as did Naruto. Orochimaru had a smirk etched on his face as he listened to the leaves twirl around each-other, signaling the fact that they had used a Shunshin.

"Come, we need to get back to sound. I'm sure Kimimaro will love to hear of how he will be cured." Their master spoke, clearly enjoying how he had just beaten Jiraya. The two nodded and the trio used their own Shunshin to leave the ruined clearing that the battle had taken place. Things seemed to be going well for the old snake sanin lately.

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** Later, in Konoha

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Sasuke didn't understand it, ho was it that Naruto was still so much stronger then him? He had used a powerful new technique when he had fought against Naruto, yet Naruto still used his old Rasengan. He heard from Jiraya that Naruto did get injured by the attack, that it had indeed affected him, but Sasuke knew. He was knocked out while Naruto still stood, even if just barely. He knew that the blond was stronger then him, and he was determined to fill that gap of power.

That was why he was here, training. He was going to fill that gap and more. He charged up his Rasendori for another blow against the mountainside, and ran forward. He thrust his hand deep into the rock face, into it was almost elbow deep. Cracks appeared out from were his arm was, and blots of lightning occasionally shot out of them. After a few seconds, he pulled the arm out and leapt back, and watched. It didn't take long until pieces of the stone fell forward and left a large crator in the mountainside.

He wore a satisfied smirk as he watched. It wouldn't be too long a wait until he could face his old freind again, he was already getting stronger. As he was getting ready to leave, he felt a hand land on his shoulder. Looking up, Sasuke saw his sesei, Jiraya. "Hey kid, i got some news for ya'. Were going on a little training trip."

"Huh?" was all the raven haied boy said. "Yea, it won't be long, just about... oh, I don't know, three years?" Sasuke frowned at that. Three years? Three years without seeing his teammate, his old sesei, his freinds... But, if he did go along with him, there was the chance that he could finally get strong enough to bring back Naruto. He may have gotten stronger over theses past few months, but three years with a sanin? This was a gift being presented to him here, and he knew he should accept it with open arms.

He smiled. "Alright, I'll go." Jiraya smiled as well. "Good. But before we go, you should say goodbye to your friends. Oh, and one more thing. Your getting a haircut. There is now way I, the legendary toad sanin, will be walking around with a kid who has hair shaped like that of a ducks ass." The sanin received a glare in return. "Hmm? Is it possible that you don't want to get stronger?" He smiled, satisfied, when Sasuke shook his head. "Good, let's get going then."

A few hours later saw Sasuke with short and spiked hair hair waving goodbye to his friends as he and Jiraya left Konoha. He knew it was going to be years before he saw any of them, so he took in their faces and made sure to remember them the entire time he would be out training with Jiraya. He knew the next few years would be vary interesting for now on.

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**Meanwhile, in Oto.

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Naruto stood outside as he watched his newest friend, Kimimaro, train with his odd bloodline limit. After the bone user found out that Naruto was the main reason for why he could walk around without the worry of suddenly dieing at any second. Tsunade was truly a genius in the medic arts. She discovered a brand new virus that solely inhabited the members of the Kaguya clan due to their unique body structure. After having completely mapped out his body and the differences between his and normal humans, she was able to quickly find and eradicate the disease.

Kimimaro had a smile on his face when he felt no pain from using his limit. The bones of his body now reacted faster and smother then they had before and allowed him to develop a new dance, one which he was now training with. Bone spikes swirled around him in a semingly chaotic matter as he swung a large katana made of his bones stopped still as he pointed his sword at a training post at the other end of the field, and they then suddenly shot out towards it, impaling the wooden post. He smiled, and the bones retracted back into his body, as did his sword.

He turned and saw his friend Naruto clapping at the performance. "That was a very amazing technique, Kmimaro-san." The Kaguya gave a nervous smile before he muttered, "Thank you, Naruto, but it still isn't fully fininshed. I have a lot of time I need to make up developing this dance." They then proceed to make their way out of the dull glow from the lanterns in the post back inside were lunch was sure to be served. The rest of the sound five were inside, with orochimaru and his daughter there as well.

Despite the fact her leader was there, Tayuyu was still bad-mouthing her very large teammate as he went for his third helping of pork. The Hebikage held a smile as he listened to their antics. He turned to were Kimimaro and Naruto were when he heard their footsteps. "It's nice to see that you two are getting along. Now, sit down and enjoy. After dinner I will be giving you all your next missions." And so they ate. It was truly an honor for them to have been invited to the village leaders home, and they took advantage of it with all the food that they ate.

When their bellys were fully stuffed, Orochimaru cleared his throat. "Now, about your mission. Naruto, you and the sound five will be undergoing a little... training mission." The sound ninja looked a bit confused, yet said nothing. Orochimaru, sensing their confusion, elaborated for them. "I plan on having another invasion in a few years, to make up for our... failure. I need you all to be at your best when we return to konoha." The four members of the sound five that had been given roles during that mission flinched. They were to protect their master and their failure cost their losing the battle against Konoha.

"You will all be leaving next week. I will give Kimimaro of your groups instructions when you leave. Now, a servant of mine will show you all out." The snake sanin scooted his chair out and left along wihth Hebiko. Naruto and the others were soon saw out by their master's servant. They all went to their separate homes to prepare. It was sure to be a brutal training that Orochimaro would assign them, so they needed to prepare for what was to come.

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**End chapter

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**(1)(Disclaimer, I don't own avatar) Look! The cabbage guy from avatar has just made a guest appearance in our little story!**

**(2)****Katon: Gamayu Endan, ****Fire Release: Toad Oil Flame Bullet**

**(A/N)**

**And there you have it folks, a batlle between Sasuke, Kabuto, Shizune, Naruto, Jiraya, and the one and only snake shadow, Orochimaru. I'm sure you all expected a big battle between all three boss summons, but that didn't fit with how I wanted things to go. For those of you who might not guess, the two ending parts are a few months after the big battle. I'm confidante you'll thank me for having Sasuke's awefull hair removed and replaced with much cooler hair. The next cchapter will take place in the seccond part from cannon, Shippuden, after their training is finished. I'll hopefully see you all soon with the next chapter, or perhaps tomorow if you guys read my other story. Till next time, bye bye!  
**


	13. The Returning ninja

**Hello my friends, I hope you will all enjoy the next installment of my wonderful story, The Strings that Bind us. In this chapter, the hero of our tale returns to sound along with the sound four. Elsewhere, another Genin returning from his trip makes an appearance. We also get some insight into the training that happened to the ninja of sound.** **I had hoped to have completed another chapter of Soragakure, my other story, by now, but I seem to have come to a bit of a writers block with it. I only have little more then two thousand words completed with it at the moment. Don't you fans of that story be discouraged, I'll try to work on that one for the duration of the day.** **In any case, I'm pleased with your reviews from last chap, all four of them.** **Tell you what, I'll give a box of my signature brownies to those who post a review for this chapter. I am in fact one of those people who like to hear feedback on what I write, even if it's just a 'Good story, update soon' post.** **Now, please, Read and Review... **Modern way by kaiser chiefs.

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**Disclaimer: I do not, and shall never own the Naruto series.**

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**The Strings that Bind us **

**Chapter 13:The returning ninja

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Near sound, three years later.**

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Two Chunin guards were especially on alert today, for they have received word that ninja would be returning today from their training trips. From were they stood guarding that particular entrance to Oto, the entrance being surrounded by rocky plains, they could see six shadowy figures closing in. The two Chunin immediately stood strait, letting their brownish cloaks to waver with the light breeze.

As the figures drew in, they could see them all more clearly. They all matched descriptions given to them by higher ranking Oto-nin. Albeit, there were some differences. One, who they assumed to be Kimimaru Kaguya, had two horns made of bone protruding from his forehead, two red dots just between them. He wore a light purple colored cloths, similar to the cloaks that they themselves were wearing.

Unlike theirs, his was tattered at the bottom and had various holes ripped in it. he also wore the cloak open, showing his white shirt underneath. His pants seemed to be the same that Jonin typically wore, but being lavender colored instead of the usual dark colors. He wore no footwear. Protruding from his elbows were two bone spikes that curved back towards his arm. He either used his bloodline to instate a fiercer appearance, or it may have been an advanced stage of it.

On his right was a giant of a man, who was wearing parts of samurai armor. The armor was maroon colored and worn on his shoulders and knees, along with covering his belly. Underneath his chest piece was a black undershirt, same as for his shinobi pants. A thin purple rope was tied around his waist, holding up the pants. His footwear were a pair of wooden geta sandals. He had the sound symbol tattooed on his forehead, and he was now bald save for the orange ponytail on the back of his head. This was clearly Jirobo.

Beside him, was a dark skinned colored man who wore cloths similar to those of sand. He had his the top of his head wrapped with cloth, yet revealing his third eye. his sound headband was for some reason tied around his mouths. He wore a beige cloak that would flutter occasionally revealing the bandages that covered his torso and arms. His pants were a brown version of the Jonin pants. His feet were also wrapped in bandages as well, but were also slipped into shinobi sandals. He walked with a bit of a slouch. This was Kidomaru

A shirtless man was beside him. The man appeared to have another body attached to his back. He had an intricate tattoo on his chest, tribal symbols that wrapped around a circle that held the symbol for sound at it's center. He wore lose black shorts with a thin purple rope to hold them up. His feet were bandaged, but that was it. Tied to his sides were two swords that seemed to have been made from bone, likely a gift from Kimimaro. His hair hung lose and obscured his face. Sakun and his brother, Ukon.

A woman with long pink hair was beside him. She wore a long sleeved black shirt underneath a sleeveless white shirt. Th shirt hung over her waist, obscuring whatever she used to hold up her black Jonin pants. She wore typical sandals on her feet. Strung around her shoulder by a brown leather strap, was a wooden case. The hair gave away her identity as Tayuya.

The last the guards couldn't really identify, but they assumed him to be Naruto. The figure had on a black leather gasmask that covered his entire face, with red tinted glass that covered his eyes. His trenchcoat, which had been brand new three years ago, was now practically in shreds. He wore leather gloves on his hands and a black shirt underneath the coat. his pants were loose black pants that held numerous pockets. His boots crunched against the ground beneath them. Occasionally, the breeze would lift up parts of his coat to show his extra puppet arms, which were now completely coated in metal armor.

"Kimimaro-sama." One of the guards asked, trying to confirm that this was indeed the ninja that were sent out to train three years ago. The horned man nodded his head. "Yes, we have returned from our training. Inform Orochimaru-sama of our return." The Chunin bowed his head, then disappeared in a shunshin accompanied by a feint whistling sound, a trademark of Otogakure's variant of the shunshin technique.

A moment later, the chunin was back. "He is waiting for you all in his throne room, Kimimaro-sama." The bone user nodded, and walked down the steps that led into Oto. His companions were behind him. Along their way, civilians nodded to the group in respect. It wasn't long until they made their way to were their master was waiting for them all. His daughter always at his side.

Hebiko herself didn't grow much, maybe more developed in certain areas, but she still stood at about her old height. She wore the same cloths she did before. Upon seeing the group, she raised an eyebrow in surprise at the change of looks the group underwent. It seemed that Naruto was also trying to cover himself up more then he did before. She couldn't wait to read their reports to her father and see what they've been up to the past few years.

The Hebikage smiled upon hearing his most trusted, save for his daughter, subordinates enter the room. He could here the light mechanical breathing noise that Naruto's new mask made, along with the swish that the fabrics of their new cloths. He couldn't wait to hear their reports. When he first sent them off training, he had them train together for the first two years, then on their own for the last. He could smell the sand off of Kidomaru, and the ink from the two brothers and Jirobo. He wondered just what they've been up to.

* * *

**Flashback, during Kimimaro's final year of training.

* * *

**

_The young man grunted in pain as he felt his bones start to change on their own. The pain was much worse then what it usually felt like when he manipulated his bones. He grabbed his forehead from the sudden shot of pain, and he could feel something hard underneath his fingers. He suddenly though off the covers of the bed he had been sleeping in and made his way to his bathroom._

_Turning on the light he gasped at what he saw in the mirror. Two horns began to make their appearance on his forehead. He knew he was the first of his clan to have evolved their bloodline to actual use, so he figured this as part of it's development. Still, that didn't excuse the pain he felt. He gasped as he felt the bones start to grow ounce more._

_He watched in the mirror as the horns continued to grow from his forehead, he could also feel itching at his elbows. After three hours of pain due to his bloodline evolving, he lay on the floor panting. His new horns curved upwards and were about three inches long. There were also spikes that protruded from his elbows. As he lay there, one thought came to mind and made him chuckle slightly, 'I think I'm going to need new cloths.'_

_

* * *

_

**Flashback, during Kidomaru's training.

* * *

**

_The man let out a cry of pain as the Suna-nin punched him in the face. He couldn't belive that he got captured by Suna of all villages. It's New Kage was a bit irritated about sounds betrayal and had been searching for Oto-nins to... 'Interrogate'. Kidomaru was unforchunately identified by one of their ninja while he was training near the village. Now, he was being...'Interrogated', more like tortured._

_His captor ounce again asked him about were Sunagakure's Kazekage's Teddy-bear was at. Kidomaru was seriously starting to consider this man being insane. After answering he didn't know once again, the man pulled out a kunai and ran the blade over Kidomaru's chest. The Sound-nin bit his lip to try and hold back the scream of pain. If only that sand nin hadn't used a chakra repressor seal, Kidomaru could've gotten out of this mess._

_Suddenly, Kidomaru was caught off guard by his change in questions and almost gave him the answer to if Orochmaru killed the previous Kazekage. After answering no again, the man stabbed the kunai into Kidomaru's leg and stuck his hand into a sack beside him. Then, he literally added salt to the sound ninja's wounds. After hours of torture, the sand nin was finally fed up. "Fine, if you won't tell me anything then perhaps you don't deserve that tongue of yours."_

_The spider nin's eyes went wide as the sand nin did something to cause immense pain, which was, cutting out his tongue. Overcome by the pain it caused, Kidomaru felt adrenaline rush though his veins. In a desperate moves, the sound-nin broke the rope that held him to the chair and felt his chakra rush though his system again. After stabbing his torturer in the heart, he used his special chakra web to stop the bleeding in his mouth._

_From now on, Kidomaru would never be able to speak again. After spitting out the blood in his mouth, he riffled though the mans things and found bandages to cover his numerous wounds. When he found his headband, he decided to wrap it around his mouth instead of covering his third eye. He then left the now burning building to continue what he was sent there to do in the first place, train._

**

* * *

Flashback, Sakun and Ukun's training.

* * *

**

T_he two brothers panted, samurai littered the ground around them. For the past few months, the two have been training in the ways of the sword in steel country. Their unique bloodline proved to be vary useful in their sword style. Ukon sank back into his brothers body as Sakun hooked his two swords around his waist._

_When they first came here, they had searched far and wide to find the best samurai clan of steel country. This was their test, to see if they had learned anything from their training. Sakun straitened up and slowly started to make his way back to the clan's main house. The samurai had informed the two that if they were to beat the clan's strongest in battle, they would become it's honorary members._

_They would need to separate, something they did not often do, to receive their gift for completing their test. They were to be given the clan's markings as a gift. The two sat down, separated, as a tattooist walked in the room with his ink and instruments. He immediately got to work, and very delicately let the markings take shape. The tattooist asked them what they would want placed in the circle that had been reserved for whatever they wished._

_They had both asked for the symbol from their headband's to be placed in the circle. When the Tattooist had finished, they both smiled. For they had just finished their training, and would soon be returning to sound.

* * *

_

**Flashback, during Tayuya's training.

* * *

**

_The flutist smiled as she examined her new flute, a gift that she had been given by her newest summon. She twisted it around in her hand to get more of a good look at the instrument. The object was white, possibly made from bone. Red vein like lines ran around the flute in a chaotic pattern. Across the entire thing were odd runes._

_As she put the flute to her lips and started to play, the runes glowed purple. Instantly, the world seemed to almost shape around her. The thick forest soon started to change in to a beautiful meadow. Shem smiled as she observed her flute's power. As soon as the music stopped, the image wavered and reveled the forest once more._

_"let's see that brat beat me now... Stupid fuck-face bastard." She scowled at the memory of having been beaten by the shadow user, along with his stupid Suna ninja girlfriend. She began to play again in a more aggressive tone, and the runes glowed red with her anger. The sky above her started to storm up and lightning shot down from the raging clouds._

_The storm grew in intensity as did her anger. Suddenly, she hit a wrong note and the sky returned to normal, no evidence of the recent storm anywhere around her. She sat there, a blank look upon her face until she growled out, "Dammit..." She knew that there was still much training that she needed to do until she returned back to her home.

* * *

_

**Flashback, during Naruto's training.

* * *

**

_All was quiet, all but the slight sound made from Naruto's mask. His dark cloths kept him hidden in the black night around him. He looked up, his masks' eyes glinting slightly in the moonlight. He stayed completely silent as he watched the clouds above him move. When they started to make their way over the moon, he jumped from his position and dashed though the forest._

_Despite his haste, he was still completely silent. He took pause as he caught movement below him. Stilling, he let his gaze fall below him. Nothing moved, that is until the bushes below him gave off a slight movement. Not wasting anytime, Naruto shot open the senbon launcher on his arm let forth a flurry of metal. A thump was heard and Naruto smiled beneath his mask._

_Crouching down, he leapt from the branch he had been on and landed on the forest below. He walked over to the bush and pulled back it's branches to reveal a large boor. No longer needing stealth, he pulled the body from the branch and summoned one of his newest puppets to assist him with his task of preparing his food._

_While he let his puppet to skin and clean the animal, he began to prepare a sizable campfire to cook the beast in. Performing a basic katon jutsu, he lit the dead tree branches and twigs he had found in the forest around him on fire. The fire casted an eery glow upon Naruto's form. He turned to his puppet to see the task finished._

_After revealing the puppet, he set upon the task of cooking the beast. After he had finished his meal, he sealed the leftovers away to serve as his dinner the next day, and put out the fire to set upon getting ready for bed. Part of his training he had planned to do was survival training, significantly better then his old so-called Jonin sensei had assigned them._

_He sighed as he remembered his life back in Konoha. While he did have a largely pathetic life there, he still enjoyed a few parts of his time there. For instance, he missed his old friend Sasuke. He shook his head to rid the thought from his head and prepared to rest for the rest of the night, yet the thought still persisted._

_"**DO NOT WORRY ABOUT IT, NARUTO.**" The Kyubi added helpfully. 'I try not to...' Naruto slipped out of his coat and laid it down on the forest floor for him to sleep on. He removed the majority of his cloths, such as his mask and shirt, and finally managed to rest. His training trip after all was soon coming to a close. He need to be ready to return back to sound.

* * *

_

**End flashbacks.

* * *

In Konoha.**

* * *

Lee sighed as he looked over his small curry stand. He wasn't getting much business today apparently. He hoped that his old sensei Gai would show up, he always brightened Lee's day. He maneuvered himself over to the chair behind the counter and let his sore leg rest. It never did fully heal. Years ago, when one of his friends left the village, he had gotten a serious injury while fighting against an extremely unyouthful opponent.

When his friend Sasuke went with the sanin Jiraya to find Tsunade to heal the wounded of Konoha, he had gotten his hopes up that he would be able to become a ninja again. Sadly, Tsunade had joined sound. Now, he could no longer endure his intense training like he used to and was forced to take a civilian life. He had chosen to start a curry stand, after all, it was curry that had helped him all those years ago.

He had met his replacement once, a boy who in both his and Gai-sensei's...er, Gai-san's opinion, was a very unyouthful person. He recalled that his name was Sai, or something similar to that. He perked up when he saw someone that he hadn't seen in years. "Sas...Sasuke-san." The now white-clad stand owner exclaimed. "Hmm? Lee? Is that you?" The raven haired, which looked much better then his old hair by the way, boy asked.

"Sasuke! It is you! Your back! How was your training Sasuke-san? Did you let your flames of youth burn brightly?" The white haired man beside Sasuke watched in amusement as the two friends were reunited. "Here, try this Sasuke-san, you must be hungry after being out there for so long. If you don't enjoy it, I'll make my curry for the next week while balancing on my pinkie!"

Sasuke smiled. 'Same old Lee.' He thought. Sasuke, along with Jiraya sat down to enjoy the ecstatic civilians food before they went to report to Itachi, both Sasuke's brother and the Hokage. Little did they know, Lee had decided to make them his famous curry of life.

* * *

**In sound.

* * *

**

Naruto smiled as he listened to his friends tell him about what he had missed the past few years. The two that he was talking to, more listening due to his mask being off so he could eat, were the teammates of one Hebiko. They were out to celebrate his return to Oto, along with his promotion to Chunin. Orochimaru had promoted all of them to Chunin after their return from the training trip.

He thanked the woman who worked there as she brought him his third bowl of ramen. He never lost his taste for miso ramen even after eating boor and dear for the majority of the year before. In fact, it likely increased. He nearly choked on his food when he heard Naikko, the girl, start talking about an embarrassing situation that Ibuta got caught up in last month.

His damaged vocal cords didn't allow him to laugh at the story, but he still smiled when he heard it. After his dinner when he had replaced his mask upon his head, he bid his friends goodnight and went to his home. When he first came here, he had been given a decent workstation for him to complete his various puppets and plenty of tools to do so. He had an idea that's been on his mind for the past few months and he wanted to try it out.

As soon as he reached his home, he got right to work. After unsealing all his equipment and his various puppets, he took one of his newer ones and laid it down on the table in the center of the room. He instantly began to draw up the new plans for the puppet before he actually did any work on it. When he had finished, he slowly began to deconstruct the puppet and started to rebuild it according to his new plans.

After a few hours, he decided to call it a night. He no longer had to worry about doing several D rank missions for the next few days, in fact, he would never have to complete another D rank again due to his Chunin status. He smiled as he proceeded to his bed, a bed that he had dearly missed over the last few years.

* * *

**In Konoha.

* * *

**

Itachi was gazing out at his stone portrait that had been carved into the Hokage monument. The portrait had his Saringan being active along with having a stern look, that a few years ago used to be a typical Uchina look. Now, with all that been going on in recent times, that looked had changed. The Uchina, what few of them there now were, have been much more open with their fellow citizens due to the tragedy they had suffered during Sound's invasion.

When the battle first started, a number of clan houses had explosive tags inside that went off. The Uchina were one of them, and suffered the most. A clan that had at one time boasted at having over fifty clan members, were now just twenty three. Itachi's old childhood friend had been one of the victims of the blast.

He sighed and turned back the door into his office. He had received reports from the villagers that his little brother had returned. He knew that that damned pervert, one who wrote very good books he might add, would be barging into his office at any minute with Sasuke in tow. He expected them to have arrived sooner. It's been a few hours since the first report.

He wondered to himself how much his brother had changed. He heard that Sasuke had gotten a haircut before he left all those years ago, but he never saw it himself. Hopefully, he also ditched his stupid emo cloths. A ninja was supposed to be stealthy, not cool as his brother said that they made him.

He was knocked out of his musings when Jiraya and Sasuke suddenly barged in. He raised an eyebrow at their sickly appearance. "It's about time you two show up. Uh... are you all right?" All Jiraya got out was "Lee... Curry... Hot... " Itachi smirked. He knew what they were talking about. Lee likely gave them his special "Curry of Life", one that he himself had at one point.

He took pause to note Sasuke's new clothing. He now wore a navy blue jacket that held the Uchina fan on the top of each sleeve over a fishnet shirt and a pair of black shinobi pants. He and Jiraya made their way forward and stumbled into the chairs provided. "I hope you have your report, Jiraya-san." When the sanin hung his head, Itachi easily figured that he had not even considered making one.

Itachi sighed, he knew today was gonna' be long. He smiled and said to his brother, "Sasuke, it's good to have you back." Said teen looked up at his brother and smiled in return. "Same here."

* * *

**Near Suna **

* * *

Two figures made their way across the cold and frozen desert. Their black cloaks that held designs of red clouds billowed in the wind around them. The straw hats they wore obscured their faces. One seemed to be hunched over, and let his cloak drag along behind him. The taller of the two, a man with long girlish yellow hair looked up at the walls and smiled. "Hey, Sasori, my man, we made it."

The now revealed Sasori looked up to confirm his partner. "It seems so. Deidara, I trust that you can handle this? Don't take long." Deidara waved his hand in a shoeing manner. "Of course. It'll be quick yeah." When they had reached the entrance to the village of Suna, they both stopped and Deidara shoved his hand into a pouch on his waist.

Moments later, he threw into the air a clay bird, which then increased in size. The blond man hopped onto the bird and took flight above Suna, a clear goal in mind.

* * *

**Chapter end

* * *

**

**(A/N)**

**And there you have it folks. We see what happed to Lee due to Tsunade's not coming back to Konoha, as well as some movements from Akatsuki. What shall be the reactions of the other Konoha ninja to Sasuke's arival? What will happen to Gaara? Will the Kasekage's teddybear ever be found? All expect perhaps that last one and more shall be ansered in the next exiting chapter. Oh, in case you forgot, if you review I'll give you a box of very lovely brownies. Baked with love.**_~Malsyn_


	14. The Living Puppet

**Oh look! I've finally updated STBU(Strings That Bind Us)! I apologize, and thank any and all of my reader's, who were patient and waited those three, I think four now, long months of me not updating this thing. As a reward for your patience, I redid the first chapter, the Prologue, of STBU. Though, I did that last month, and using only a Wordpad application, so I'm going to redo that one as well. In any case, bring you the fourteenth, and longest chapter of STBU! Totaling at over 7Kwrds, this chapter covers a bit of our Hebikage's history, as well as showing weather the Kazekage of Suna lived or not! Although, it does not show us what happened to his precious teddy bear... In any case, I hope you will all enjoy this chapter, as I worked really hard on it just for you! Now, please, Read and Review. ...Cries of wanting my story updated, by my fans.**

* * *

**Disclaimer: I do not, and shall never, own Naruto... unless I come into a large bit of money, then maybe I'd buy the series.**

* * *

**The Strings that Bind Us **

**Chapter 14: The Living Puppet

* * *

**

** ~In sound~ **

* * *

The old and unageing Hebikage sat quietly in his room. No lights were on, not even the light from the artificial lights from outside his home bled in though the windows. In his hands was a letter, a report sent to him from Oto's spies inside Suna. It was written in braille, and not only did that serve to let the blind snake shadow read the paper, it further helped to keep it's secrets from other ninja. Not many ever bothered to learn braille, and the seemingly random dots punched into the paper looked like gibberish to others. As a result, those messages were often thrown out as nothing.

Most everyone in Oto knew Braille, however. The dim lights that hung far above the streets often made it hard to read various things written on eye-level while in the streets. As a solution, storekeepers started printing signs that held braille on them to help their customers. Of course, once inside, the braille signs were no longer necessary due to the brightly lit interior.

Orochimaru sighed as he ran his fingers across the paper once more. It was the Akatsuki, his old partners were on the move again. Suna's Kazekage, which had been Gaara, the single tailed Shukaku holder, has been captured. The description of the attacker, a long haired blond who rode upon a clay bird, matched the one of his replacement in the Akatsuki, Deidara. The man grew a scowl upon his face as he recalled the events that led up to his defection...

* * *

_**~Years ago, somewhere in the land of rain.~ **_

* * *

_The ever present downpour fell upon the two ninja. One, a tall fellow with pasty skin, and a young appearance, stood next to his much smaller partner. Across from them stood a blond man, whose hair was hung in a ponytail, and fell over one of his eyes. He stood in the Iwa Jonin uniform, though it told of him having come a long way. "You two... are from the Akatsuki, right, yea?" The man ignored the rain that fell on him, and simply stared at the two men across from him._

_The partner of Sasori, the shorter man, narrowed his eyes at the blond. "Did you need something of them, mister..." The man, Orochimaru, trailed off, waiting for the blond to finish his sentence. The man smirked, "Deidara, and I'm looking to join." He held out one of his hands to the two Akatsuki, who simply stared at the hand like something alien, as if Deidara just sneezed into his hand, and then offered to shake their hands with it, and kept the other in a black bag, that was slung around his shoulder._

_"We are full, and no longer looking for new applicants, Deidara." Was calmly spoke by Sasori. The blond man scowled, and withdrew his hand. "Well then, perhaps I should make an opening available then!" He pulled the hand out of his bag, and threw something of a pasty color at Sasori. Orichmaru's eyes widened as the object grew in size to that of a gigantic bird. He pushed his partner out of the blast's radius, just as it exploded._

_The short man grunted, and thanked his comrade. "I'll handle this fool, Sasori." spoke Orichimaru, as he shot out his arms and let lose a great many snakes. Deidara countered by tossing more explosives at the oncoming reptiles. He choked something up his throat, and a snake wound it's way from Akatsuki member's mouth. A sword gleamed, and the man grabbed it. The snake that had been holding the weapon, retreated back into the safety of it's master's throat._

_Orichimaru charged though the cloud of smoke at Deidara, and thrust his sword into his stomach. A look of shock spread across his features, and a deep smirk formed on Orichimaru's. "Teaches a punk like you to mess with us." Bulges start to form on Deidara's body, and both Orichimaru's and Sasori's eyes widen. "Orichimaru! Get back!" He tries to move over to where the two were, but his smaller stature made it harder for him._

_The pale man tried to get away, and pull his sword out, but found it stuck inside of Deidara. He opted for letting go, but found his hand cemented to the sword's handle. 'NO!' He thought, just before the explosion rocketed him away, a bloody stump evident. He slammed against a tree, and the sword pinned him to the trunk._

_Sasori's newly revealed tail flickered angrily, at the blond man who attacked his friend. "So, that spot's open now, yea?" The Akatsuki was about to shoot his poisoned tipped tail though the arrogant man, when his leader showed. "That is enough, Deidara. You have proved yourself worthy." The tail stilled, and it's wielder's gaze shifted to his leader. "What... is the meaning of this?"_

_Pein, the Akatsuki leader, observed Sasori with little emotion. "Your partner was becoming a nuisance, and we needed a replacement. Sasori, say hello to your new partner, Deidara." With reluctance, The tail slipped back into the smaller man's body. "It is... nice to meet you... partner." Deidara smiled.

* * *

_

**~Present~ **

* * *

The letter has since been crumpled, and his already pale knuckles, grew whiter. A scowl was on his face. That event was among the last to pass before his eyes, as he was forced to use his experimental immortality technique, which had both worked and backfired at the same time. He began to growl. 'I'll get you... I may not be able to take you down now, but my students will be more then happy to crush your pretty little face in...Deidara.'

* * *

**~In Konoha~ **

* * *

Itachi frowned as he read down the letter, sent from Suna. It detailed how the Akutski may be on the move, as the Kazekage of Suna, Gaara, a demon vessel, was captured by a man who wore cloaks similar to the Akatsuki that Sasuke and his team had encountered. Not only this, but it also asked for Konoha's help in re-obtaining their Kazekage. After rereading the note, he conducted a small Katon jutsu to burn the letter, to help keep other Shinobi villages from knowing of Suna's weakened state.

He folded his hands, and began to figure out the team he would be needing to send. It would need to be strong enough to take down the pair of Akutski, and fast enough to make it there in time, before the two could escape. Generally, it takes on average three days to travel to Suna by tree-jumping, if one were to start from Konoha. So then, possibly a few Jonin, not much more then five.

He pulled out a sheet, and began to make up the team to be sent. He frowned again, when he saw that most of the Jonin were off conducting other missions. Only a handful were left, and most of them had Genin teams. Hmm... this could also be a good learning experience, for the Genin to see how a proper rescue is carried out. He smirked when he saw that Kakashi and his two Genin were available, as well as Gai's.

So, with the teams set up, it was time to contact them and give them their new mission. He carefully wrote down their names, then called his assistant on his com. "Yamada, can you please send out messengers to both Gai, and Kakashi's teams?" "Ha-hai, Hokage-sama." Came the nervous reply. The Uchina smiled, and pulled out his new favorite little orange book. On the front, was Jiraya's signature. This book belonged to the third Hokage, and was given to him as a gift. Itachi found this hidden away while he was setting up his new office. On the inside, was a little note from Jiraya, to his old teacher.

"Teacher, I know you may not approve of my writing, but I still wish for you to be the first to own this book. Consider this a thanks for all that you have done for me. Signed, Jiraya. Oh, and happy birthday." Itachi smiled as he read that little bit. It was nice to have something of Sarutobi's that he treasured, it also helped to serve as a reminder that all that the third did, for him. Flipping over to a book-marked page, he began to read the naughty little adventures of the main characters.

After reading though a few pages, he heard Yamada speak up on the intercom again, informing him of the arrival of the ninjas he had called for. Quickly, he slammed the book closed, and tossed it into his drawer. If one were to look more closely at the book, they would see that this had been done a great many times before."Send them in, please." In a moment, the six ninja walked in, ready for whatever task that would be given to them.

"Kakashi, please close the door. I have an important mission for you all." The silver haired man did so, and turned back to face his leader. Off to the side of Itachi's desk, Kakashi could pick up traces of ash. This indeed was, an important mission. Itachi stood up straight, and folded his hands in front of his face. "Recently, something has happened in Suna, and they need our help. Gaara, their Kazekage, has been kidnapped."

Looks of shock ran across the faces of the ninja in the room. Who could have done this? Why did they do this? Ransom? Hatred? A hit of some sort? All of these questions rattled in their head, with answers soon expected. Sasuke, in particular, was wondering how in the hell Gaara became Kazekage. Their Hokage spoke up, and drew them out of their thoughts.

"You should know, that there has been a criminal organization for a few years, that went by the name of Akatsuki. They are notorious for their black cloaks, with a unique red cloud pattern. Kakashi, I believe your team has run afoul of one of their teams before? Kisame and Zabuza was it?" He received a nod from the ex-ANBU captain.

"Their goal, seems to be capture of the tailed beasts, which are contained inside human vessels. Their true purpose is unknown, but it is assumed that they want the beasts as a means to create war. Gaara, is one of these vessels. We have received a letter that requests our help. You six, are going to be that help. All of you need to leave as soon as possible. Dismissed." The ninja filed out of the room, assumingly to go and prepare. The new Hokage had faith in those people, and he knew that they would do their best. Now, to sneak in some more 'Icha Icha Paradise' time before Yamada came in with more paperwork.

* * *

** ~In sound~

* * *

**

Naruto has just been given his first assignment as an honorary Chunin of Otogakure. Together, with team Hebiko, he would be going on an assassination mission, with the capture of Gaara as a side-objective. His target would be a man by the name of Deidara. He peered at the image of the man though the red lenses of his gas mask, at the man who held blond hair like his. He carefully read over the information.

Deidara was a long-range fighter, that relied mainly on a sort of exploding clay, that he could manipulate with ease. On the left side of his face, was some sort of scope. He carries around a small duffle bag, usually two as it said on the paper, of his special clay. On his hands, were odd mouths, which may or may not be natural, that allow him to manipulate the clay, and prime it. It also stated that he wasn't hesitant to explode himself, but often fooled opponents with clay clones.

He lay down the photo, and the paper that had his information, down on the table in front of him. His teammates also received similar items, and will be assisting in the assassination. He turned toward the half-finished puppet on his worktable, and sighed. It would seem that his finest masterpiece was destined to never be completed. Naruto brought out all four of his arms, and began to seal his other puppets, the ones he had finished repairing and modifying, back into the storage seals etched onto the metal armor upon his prosthetic limbs.

After he finished gathering all of his needed supplies, he turned off the lights in his home, and walked out the door. After locking it, he went off to his new team's designated training ground in order to wait for his teammates. While waiting, he began to absently play with a few scattered stones using his chakra strings to fly them around. He also started to speak with the demon that dwelled within him.

'This is going to be exciting, isn't it, Kyubi? We get to see that Gaara fellow again.' "**IT WOULD SEEM THAT WAY, NARUTO. DID ORICHIMARU SAY THAT HIS CAPTURE WAS SECONDARY?**" Naruto gave a small mental nod to the beast, and continued to play with the rocks. "**I WANT YOU TO MAKE IT PRIMARY. I WOULD LIKE TO... SPEAK, WITH SHUKAKU.**" Naruto simply shrugged his shoulders. 'Alright I guess.'

After getting bored with the rocks, he released the strings of chakra and let the stones fall back to the earth. He stared up at the cave's ceiling, and at the many lights far above. He listened to the sounds of the small city around him, being echoed off of the cave walls. He heard of various musical based weapons playing their deadly tunes, as well as the common chatter of the various residents. Over time, people begin to get used to that sound, people even started to find it as comforting. He to, felt the sounds to be comforting.

He had become so absorbed in the pleasant sound of the city around him, that he didn't notice the footsteps of his team until Naikko pounced him. For what reason she did this for, he had no idea, it was likely just for the comical reaction Naruto displayed just after. After pushing her off, he began to get the dust off of his coat, all the while listening to the chuckles that came from Ibuta and Naikko. 'My reputation... is ruined...' He thought to himself.

"Naruto, are you ready for your first mission as a Chunin?" Ibuta asked him. He and Naikko sat down next to the half-puppet, and the two held each others hands while doing so. The blond boy looked at the two from the inside of the tinted glass lenses. "Of course. I wouldn't be here if I wasn't." The red-haired girl nodded, and pulled out a photo of their target from the pouch on her waist, briefly bumping a scroll decorated with images of death. A small contract scroll.

Naikko then laid the image of Deidara out on the ground in front of the three. "He dosn't look like much, does he Naruto?" Naruto glanced down at the photo. "Images can be quite deceiving at times, Naikko." "I wonder what he did to Hebikage-sama..." The silver-haired boy trailed off, his mind warping around with interesting ideas, most of them extremely unlikely, such as Deidara having interrupted Orichimaru's tea party with his daughter and poured hot tea all over him. This of course would never happen, the snake shadow would be able to dodge the tea. Not to say that he didn't enjoy tea parties.

"I heard, that he and Hebikage-sama got into some big fight once." Naikko said. Naruto shrugged, and laid back on the ground. "Regardless, the only thing that matters is that Orichimaru-sama wants him dead, and we shall provide. Isn't that right, Hebiko?" The other two jumped up at the mention of their leader's daughter, and their teammate. She held a smirk on her pale face, and nodded. "Indeed it is, Naruto-san. It only matters that father wants him dead, nothing else. there is no real point in us knowing why."

Naikko stared at her for a little, then spoke up. "...You don't know either, do you?" Hebiko scratched the back of her head, and laughed a bit nervously. "Nope." Naikko and Ibuta seemed to grow an obscenely large sweat-drop on their heads, but it was likely just some genjutsu. The pale, skinny girl coughed into her hand, and called her teammates back to attention. "In any case, it's time for us to leave. Do you three have everything?"

Ibutta picked up two backpacks from the ground, and put them on. "Me and Naikko have our things. Naruto?" He held up his arm, and when the sleeve fell he pointed to the storage seals inscribed on the cold metal of his arm. "Indeed I do." Ibutta seemed to glare at his girlfriend, before pulling out a scroll and sealing the two packs away. She wasn't fazed in the slightest. "Alright then, let's set off."

The four snaked, no pun intended, their way though the streets of Oto, to the large iron doors that marked one of the exits from the underground city. The door was decorated with the image of a large oak. This one led to the forest entrance. Naruto and Ibuta opened up the doors, and let the females of their team walk though first, then entered themselves.

The very bottom of the stairs were lit with torches, and led up nearly thirty feet to another door. Nobody, not even ninja of Sound, ever really noticed the complex sealing that was carved out on the ground and on the walls. Jiraya, the seal master of Konoha, would feel envy if he knew it was his old teammate himself that created the magnificently done time-space seals, that gave the impression of the stairs being only thirty feet in height, when in truth they led up for more then a mile.

Otogakure, was much more hidden then even it's own citizens knew. The trip up took only five minutes, when it would really have taken a few hours, or more. They pushed though the doors, and nodded at the guardsman on the outside. It was night out, and the only light was the crescent moon high above. It played with the shadows around, and gave the forest a nightmarish appearance.

The two clocked women, which was obvious from the slight swells on their chests, nodded back, and went back to peering into the darkness, searching for anyone foolish enough to try and gain access to Oto. Hebiko took out a small compass, and let it find north. Then, after closing the thick doors behind them, they jumped off into the trees and made way toward Suna.

* * *

** ~Konoha~ **

* * *

The six ninja were doing their last minute preparations before they set off to Suna. Their mission, to rescue Gaara at any cost. They all knew it would be a tough fight, to go against the Akatsuki members, and they would give the fight their all. Gai and Kakashi stood, watching the four packing their bags in preparation for their three-day trip.

"Do you think they are ready, Kakashi? Why do we have to risk these childrens' lives, just for him." The way Gai spoke, it showed that he held a grudge against Gaara for what he had done to his prized student, even if the two became great friends afterwards. "Gai, it is unlike you to hold a grudge." The silver-haired man spoke, in all seriousness despite his favorite little orange book full of porn only a few inches from his face.

The taijutsu expert frowned at his friend. "You know what that Gaara did to Lee, what he did to him with that evil sand of his. Lee can never walk again without a crutch, you know. And all he ever does these days is just sit in his little shop, making curry. I've seen the look in his eyes, Kakashi, I know he wants to be back out there, training, running, fighting. He wants to be a ninja, and he can't because of that thing-"

Kakashi snapped the book shut, and looked his friend straight in the eye. "Gai, for once, can you just shut it. You know perfectly well that it was an accident, and yet you refuse to acknowledge the fact. Gaara even apologized to Lee, and Lee forgave him, just as you should. Have you not seen the two together? Whenever Lee visits Suna with us on our missions, they are inseparable. And don't blame Gaara for what he holds, don't just call him a monster. He may have been ruthless before, but he's changed. Did you not hear how he saved all of Suna, at the cost of his losing and being captured?"

Gai was silent. His oddly shaped eyes watched his remaining team, Ten-ten and Neji, pull out a couple scrolls, and seal their things into the already pre-prepared seals on the inside. He sighed. "You might be right, Kakashi." Kakashi scuffed, and pulled the book open again. "I'm always right." His friend smiled, and called his team over, as did Kakashi. It was time for them to set out.

* * *

**~In a forest not far from Suna~ **

* * *

The four Sound-nin watched with patience, as the Leaf-nin demonstrated how a barrier was placed on the large boulder. They sat still, far away from them, hidden under the tree-line. Sasuke and Kakashi were nowhere to be seen, and likely split up with the others at some point. They were going to wait until the foolish ninja broke the barrier for them. the leaves in the trees above rustled along with the wind that came through after Gai tried to break the boulder down with a solid kick. No luck.

They simply waited until the ninja went off to break the obvious Five Seals Barrier. Gai left behind a shadow clone, a technique he must have learned recently, and then the others departed to locate the other seals. In a few minutes, the clone jumped up, it's hand holding the very edge of the paper-seal. At some unheard count, it ripped off the flimsy paper. Unknown to it, another clone formed from the water, and made to attack it. It only took one punch to the head, and the Gai clones dispersed.

Each of the Sound-ninja stood up as one body, and made their way to the gigantic boulder, before the paper tag even landed in the stream. "Now that the barrier's gone, it's time to break down this thing." Ibuta muttered. "Let me handle this." Hebiko said with a smirk. She got out a bunch of explosive-tags, and placed them on the rock in rapid session. The others jumped back the moment she pulled out the notes of paper, and waited for her to set them off. When she had finished, she jumped back to her team and activated the tags with a single hand-seal.

The boulder exploded, and bits of rock and dust came flying at them. Shielding themselves with their arms, they waited for the barrage of boulders to cease, then peered into the cave. What they saw shocked them. Gaara, their secondary objective, was lying on the ground, with some blue substance escaping from his mouth and towards the eye of a rather large statue. The statue had a total of eight figures upon each finger. They all held looks of shock and surprise, yet only two were really there. Their primary objective, Deidara, and his partner, Sasori. One of the false images' eyes narrowed at the intruders, and yelled at the Deidara and Sasori. "Stop them!"

The two ceased holding their hands in a seal, and jumped down from the hands. When they did, the substance leaking from Gaara's mouth decreased. Hebiko snarled, an unpleasant thing to hear from such a lovely young woman, and pointed at the two, mainly Deidara. "Take them down, and stop whatever they're doing to the secondary!" The other three moved quickly, Naikko pulled out a sealed violin, Ibuta plopped his hands in a seal, and Naruto pulled out his arms from beneath his coat, and let large blades shoot out from their wrists. They all charged.

As they did, Deidara shoved his hand into his pouch, and pulled out a wad of clay. The explosive substance disappeared into his hand, only to re-appear a moment later. He worked at with his fingers, forcing it into a mold of some sort. Sasori tore off his cloak to reveal himself to be a puppet of some sort, with a large red mask and a long metal tail that shot from the mouth. "Deidara, take on those three, it's been forever since I've dealt with a fellow puppet-master"  
"Whatever you say, boss. I can take them, yea."

Deidara threw out a clay bird, that expanded enough that he could sit upon it, and flew out the cave. "Naruto, you get Gaara, we'll take down Deidara!" Hebiko shouted, as Naruto's three friends left him in the cave against Sasori. The two stared each other down, daring one another to make a move. Six eyes were locked on the two, as they continued to do whatever they were doing to Gaara.

"What's going on here?" Naruto asked, his mechanical voice having no visable affect on Sasori. "Wouldn't you like to know?" One of the figures shouted at the boy. "Hidan, shut up." Another spoke. Sasori nor Naruto paid any attention to the bickering from the holographic images. "Is it not obvious? We are relieving him of his burden, Naruto, just as we will soon do to you." Naruto's eyes narrowed at Sasori's still figure, with the only movement the slight twitches given from the tail, signifying it's readiness to strike at any moment.

"Not if I can help it." In a flash, Naruto rushed towards the Akatsuki member, his arms poised to slice the puppet to bits. His tail shot at him, and he dodged it at last second, and crossed his blades over the puppet. As he did so, something shot out just before the thing fell to pieces. Naruto turned, and looked at a red-haired man wearing the Akatsuki cloak. "Ha. You are stronger then I had first thought, Naruto."

Naruto looked at the rubbage, then back at Sasori. "You... were hiding inside of a puppet? How strange of you, Sasori of the red sand. I've envied your work, you know." He glanced at the destroyed puppet again. "Such beautiful work, and such detail." Sasori smiled at Naruto, for complementing his work. "Would you like to know my secret?" His hands rummaged for something, then he threw up his hands as a puppet, that looked suspicously like the third Kazekage, appeared in a cloud of smoke.

Naruto got out his own favorite puppet, an improved version of Kaibutsu, and attached the chakra strings, ready for fight. "I use human puppets." Naruto's eyes widened. 'Human...puppets?' His eyes trailed to the broken puppet that Sasori had been hiding in, then back at the one he was currently wielding. The third Kazekage. Naruto read about him, about his unique bloodline ability that let him control bits of iron, his aptly named 'Iron sand' ability.

He also read, that the man had disappeared, and was assumed dead because his body had not been found. Naruto gazed into the lifeless eyes of the puppet, and he traced over the fine detail it displayed. There were scars, wrinkles, and even a birthmark on the puppet's neck. Either Sasori put a lot of time and effort into making the thing, or it was indeed what he said it was. A human puppet.

Odd thing is, the idea of turning someone into a puppet fascinated him. Perhaps, with enough skill, he could finish to himself what that mob did years ago. He himself could become a living puppet. "That is... interesting, Sasori. Perhaps you could show me how this is done some time?" Sasori smiled, his eyes held in a tired, sort of bored expression. "I would've loved to have shown someone my art, but I'm afraid I have a mission. If you're lucky, and survive this, you can try and do it yourself." The red-haired man threw up his arms, and the Kazekage puppet moved as he did so.

Naruto also threw up his arms, only two, mind you, and let his puppet run at the other, his bladed legs clanging against the cave floor. The Kazekage puppet pulled out a hidden weapon, a scythe, as well as a some sort of claw on it's right arm, at the same time long, black blades fell from Kaibutsu's wrists, and into place. Clangs and sparks of metal echoed across the enclosed space, as the Akatsuki watched in awe at the might of their puppets, as they danced the dance of sword and blade.

"I've never seen Sasori-san in action, before." Spoke a short, likely young man's image. "Then you're in for a treat, Haku." They all watched the spectacle, while at the same time extracting the one-tailed Shukaku from Gaara.

The two puppets were cutting each other to bits, Naruto's more-so then Sasori's, so they pulled them both back. Sasori's gaze drifted somewhere else for a second, before he pulled a hidden wire and let lose a large number of traps, that Naruto had somehow managed to not trip. Kunai and shuriken of many variants gleamed with poison, as they flew from their hidden spaces. Naruto was quick to react, and brought his puppet over and began to knock the weapons away. Sparks flew as the ninja tools hit both Kaibutsu's metal armor, and bladed weapons.

The wooden body dangled and danced from its bladed legs, as it made every attempt to help defend it's master. Naruto was had also left control of the puppet to one single hand, and used the others to spin his blades about like shields, in order to keep himself from being cut by the grunted at the effort, and his attention was turned from his opponent, to the objects flying at him.

With Naruto distracted by his trap, Sasori aimed his puppet's arms at the blond, and activated a technique unique to his Kazekage puppet. "**Senju Sobu!**(Thousand Hands Manipulation Military Art)" Sasori shouted, and the Kazekage's arms opened up, to reveal hidden seals. The seals activated, and several arms launched forth from them, then those ones opened, and the ones after those, and the ones after those.

Naruto's eyes widened at the number of hands reaching for him, and tried to slump back from where the attack would likely hit. He didn't make it in time, and was buried into the ground by the multitude of arms. His puppet fell limp, and the metal legs collapsed from under it. Sasori watched the area where his attack landed, and ignored the murmurs coming from the images around him.

"Nice job there, Sasori." One said, and right after he did, the wooden arms of Sasori's technique shuddered and trembled, then burst to pieces. Sasori's face went up in shock, but he quickly recovered and launched poisonous gas from the arms of his puppet. The gas, of course, had no effect what so ever, except maybe cloud Naruto's vision, due to his gas mask. The Kaibutsu puppet moved, as it's string were reattached, and the sound of something else being unsealed was heard.

Anger fell on Sasori's face, and he activated the Kazekage puppets final technique, the iron sand. It fell from out of it's mouth, and started to form long needles. "**Satetsu Shigure!**(Iron Sand Drizzle)" He shouted, and shot the many poisoned needles at the cloud of smoke. All that was heard, was the sound of the sand needles hitting something metal, and bursting. The gas dissipated, and reveled Naruto's second puppet.

Unlike traditional puppets, it's limbs were separated only by chakra strings, and it gave it's limbs much more movement. It was human shaped, but held pieces of a large steel shield on each body part. Sasori let forth another Satetsu figure at Naruto, but the strings of his puppet drew tight, and the pieces of metal came together to form a shield, that held a swirl pattern with a musical note, Sound's symbol, at it's center.

This time, as the needles hit the shield, a banging sound was heard when they made contact. A sound that was manipulated by chakra, and amplified to skull-splitting decibels. Sasori remained unaffected, but the Akatsuki images actually broke their extraction technique just to clamp down on their ears, and stop the hurting they felt. Their images faded, one by one, in order to get away from the pain. When they had all gone, the blue substance rushed from out of the statue and back into Gaara.

When the noise ceased, Sasori narrowed his eyes at Gaara, who was now simply unconscious. "It seems we will be needing to start all over again, for that one." His finger twitched, and more sand spewed forth from the Kazekage's mouth. The iron flecks then came together, and formed large geometric shapes. The objects of super-compacted sand fell towards the defense puppet, and the metal cracked under the pressure. Naruto grunted, and forced the thing to stay together.

Sasori kept creating more and more sand, and the shapes grew large and heavy. Soon, they hit the statue behind him, making the thing explode into smoke, as it was un-summoned. He flew the shapes high into the air, and made the ceiling crack apart. Naruto's eyes widened, and he quickly drew back Kaibutsu, so he could seal it away. Then, in rapid movement, he gathered up Gaara, and let his other puppet fall to pieces, letting the massive pyramid hit the ground. Finally, he gathered it back up and covered him and Gaara with it, to prevent them from getting crushed.

Loud bangs came from it, as the chakra induced sound began to knock some of the rocks from landing on the two. Even while the stones fell, Sasori dispersed the sand and came in for one last move, to finally stop the two. "**Satetsu Kaiho!**(Iron Sand World Order) Gigantic and massive spikes formed and plunged into the ground, drawing up even more dust.

Naruto's teeth clenched together as he put more and more chakra into his puppet's defensive moves. Finally, the sounds ceased, and he let the defense puppet get re-sealed into his arms. He saw the Kazekage puppet floating in the air, and made way for it. He sliced the thing apart, and kicked the head at where he suspected Sasori to be.

Said man's eyes fell wide, as his most beloved puppet's head flew at him. He threw off his cloak, and activated an attack that let fire spew forth from his arms. "You are much better then I thought, Naruto." Sasori's puppet body both shocked, and fascinated Naruto. 'How was he able to...' His thoughts drifted, as he saw the object in his chest, a container with the word 'Scorpion' Written on it in kanji. Of course, Sasori wasn't able to make all of himself a puppet, and still be able to control it. There had to at least something organic in there.

He was blocked from further thought, as a cable that held a spike on it's end came rushing at him, from Sasori's chest. He had just barely dodged it, when more fire came rushing at him. He jumped away, and watched the fire actually melt the rocks it hit. A poof was heard, and the fire stopped, only to be replaced with jets of water that cut though the earth around him like butter.

Naruto kept dodging behind the rubble from Sasori's relentless attacks. "You know, Naruto, this has been the first time in years when I've been forced to use myself. I think you deserve a reward for pushing me this far. Observe, my ultimate technique, Naruto. **Aka Higi: Hyakki no Soen!**(Red Secret Technique: Performance of a Hundred Puppets)" the jets of water ceased, and he drew a hand to a compartment on his chest. Opening it, he reveled a spinning web of his own chakra.

He summoned forth a great many puppets, each completely unique, each wielding a weapon slightly different then the others, and each wearing a red cloak. They were all connected to Sasori by a single chakra string each, woven from the open chest compartment. "I... am going to need some help on this... Kyubi, I ask of you to lend me some of your power." Something deep inside his mind stirred at his request, and he heard the booming reply in his head. "**AS YOU WISH, NARUTO.**"

He tucked Gaara safely away, then turned to face the hoard of human-puppets. Red, malevolent chakra wove around his frame, and he began to get down on all his limbs, as ears and a tail formed from the dark energy. Cracks and pops were heard, as Naruto's own Puppet parts changed along with his organic parts. Black claws grew from his four hands, only one set was actually real, with the others being metal. The lenses of his mask glowed red, from the power, as his coat billowed at the chakra-agitated wind.

Sasori, for the first time in years, felt scared.

The red chakra spun large, thick strings of it's own, and began to take control over Sasori's puppets. He was forced into destroying his own creations, as Naruto shot at him, leaving behind a small crater. Bits of wood fell from the sky as Sasori and Naruto clashed. Sasori, holding swords from his fallen puppets, along with the spinning blades from his back, and Naruto, with solid blades of chakra on each arm.

Their onslaught continued, both giving it their all. By the time Naruto finally had Sasori pinned against a wall, the ground was littered with all of Sasori's puppets. As he was stabbed though the one organic part of him left, his heart, he gasped out, and stared at Naruto with amazement. "Naruto... never had I needed to use that move, and never had it been crushed so fast. I... envy you, at your gift, your power..." A purple substance, that was not blood, leaked from Sasori's mouth.

"I... want you to have... something, something to... give to your master, and... my old friend... Take... my body... and... my puppets... they... are... yours..." His head hung limp, as the last bit of life left his wooden corpse. the energy around Naruto faded, and the solid blades of chakra vanished, letting Sasori fall to the ground. He sighed, and looked around at the destruction. "I hope the others had as much fun as I did..."

* * *

**~Chapter end~

* * *

**

**(A/N)**

**Did you enjoy Orichimaru's flashback? Was Gai's anger well deserved? Did Naikko really have to ruin Naruto's reputation like that? Was the fight seen to long, or not long enough? I am looking for your thoughts on these matters, so just send your responses to these questions by clicking on that little review button, and reviewing the story! Also, nest week we get to see the Hebiko and her two teammate's confrontation against Deidara, and just what exactly the foolish Konoha ninja were doing the entier time! Untill next time, Chao! **_~Malsyn_


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